“I will not, Lorna,” Minna assured her friend. “Now, you will stop calling me ‘mistress.’ I insist on it. My name is Minna, and that is the only name I will answer to from now on.”
Lorna nodded. “If ye wish, Minna,” she answered with a smile.
“Now, I am going into the village,” Minna said. “But I need my brother to think I am occupied with something else.”
Lorna thought for a moment. “A bath? He willnae dare come intae the room then!”
Minna laughed, clapping her hands. “That should give us at least an hour’s grace. “Lorna - you are a genius!”
“I have been tellin’ ye that for years!” Lorna laughed.
11
The bath was duly ordered, but Minna was long gone by the time it arrived. She had changed into her breeches and shirt, added an old, patched sweater and a workman’s woolen bonnet into which she tucked her hair. Then she sneaked down one of the secret passages with which the castle was riddled, and out into the fresh air. She crept under the shadow of the few trees that grew around the castle and headed for the village.
The quickest way to get there measured no more than quarter of a mile away from the castle, and once the path had passed through the few trees that grew around the castle, it skirted the loch before going around the edge of the woods and into Cairndene. Minna was striding along, looking at the ground to try to avoid the mud from the previous night’s rain, when a familiar voice rang out in front of her.
“I knew it!” Jamie cried as he stepped out in front of her. “I knew you would try this!” His blue eyes were blazing with anger, but for once he did not reek of whisky.
Minna stopped short, then tried to dodge around him, but he caught her easily, grabbing her by the upper arms and forcing her backwards towards the loch.
“If you knew then why did you make me promise to stay inside?” she demanded.
“A test,” he replied. “To see if you would defy me. To see if you were a person of your worth. But no - you are not, are you? My sister, who looks down on me and accuses me of being selfish and heartless, is no better than I am!”
“How dare you!” Minna cried. “I am trying to help these people! You are taking food out of their mouths and you do not care! What are you saving all your wealth for? Whisky? Wine? Nights out with your worthless friends?”
“Well, there is no point in me spending it on wine, is there?” Jamie snarled, “since my good wine is disappearing faster than I can drink it. What was next? My whisky? When did you become so fond of alcohol?”
Minna felt her heart skip a beat and the blood drained from her face as she realized that her scheme to sell Jamie’s wine had been discovered. She had thought that replacing expensive vintages with cheap rubbish would fool him, but evidently he had a spy amongst the staff or his palette was better than she thought.
“I am not interested in drinking your wine or your whisky,” Minna replied, trying to keep her voice calm. “I was selling it to buy clothes and food for the people of Cairndene, because you would do nothing.”
“So you really thought that I could not distinguish the taste of fine vintage wine from stuff that tastes only a little better than vinegar?” Jamie gave a strange half-laugh and poked his finger into Minna’s chest. “You don’t know me very well, sister dear. I have an excellent palette.”
“And no doubt an expensive one!” Minna’s voice was bitter. “And you would rather feed your excellent palette than keep poor people alive!”
“I expect you are going ro see your precious peasants now?” Jamie raised his eyebrows in a question.
“They are not peasants - they are tenant farmers and villagers who work for you - and they arepeoplewith hopes and dreams just like you - or maybe you don’t dream further than your next bottle of whisky! You are a selfish, greedy fool, Jamie Darroch, and I am ashamed to call you my brother!”
While she was speaking, Minna had been poking her finger into his chest, and now he gripped her upper arms and growled: “well, I have good news for you, little sister. You can stay with your precious villagers as long as you like, because you will never darken the doors of the castle again! Try to get in and the guards will simply turn you away. You are not welcome in my home anymore. If you love those people so much, and you say they are hungry, then go and share their pain. Let them look after you - go on - you will never have to look at your horrible cruel brother ever again!”
Unbeknownst to Minna, she had been backing towards the edge of the loch as they were speaking. This side of the lake had a low wall around it which reached her knees, and the water behind it was deeper than the rest.
All of a sudden Jamie put his hands on her shoulders and pushed, then turned on his heel and walked away. Minna gave a startled squeak then toppled over the knee-high wall, spinning her arms backwards in a vain attempt to stop herself falling backwards.
It was futile, however. She had no time to even take a breath before the freezing water closed over her head she inhaled a great mouthful of it, but as she coughed reflexively she inhaled more water. Panic flooded through her, and she began to thrash about, kicking her legs frantically trying to reach the daylight above her that meant blessed air and salvation. Her chest was on fire, but she kept reaching and kicking. She was not going to give up. She would not let Jamie win.
Her vision was darkening, but the pain in her chest was beginning to lessen. She was tiring, losing the ability to fight any more.Her eyes drifted closed. ‘Goodbye, Lorna,’she thought.‘Don’t worry about me, I am going to heaven, and I will see you there one day.’
However, she did not get to heaven, at least, not that day. Suddenly she was pushed upwards as a great weight splashed into the water beside her. She could not see, only feel the waves swirling around her. Then for a few seconds she caught a glimpse of daylight before drifting under the water again. She saw her hands floating on the surface, then abruptly she was lifted out of the water and over the edge of the wall and placed on the grass.
The earth was firm beneath her back, she could see daylight, and an overwhelming sense of relief flooded over her. She gulped in great lungfuls of life giving air even as she began to cough painfully, spewing great jets of water from her mouth and nose.
Minna’s eyes were streaming, her chest was still on fire with pain, and she was vaguely aware of a shape moving around her, but she could not focus on it. The cough was ripping through her, shaking her whole body and worsening the burning pain in her chest. Then she felt herself being rolled over onto her side, allowing the rest of the water to trickle from her mouth onto the grass, but she was still racked with coughing as she succumbed to utter darkness.
* * *