Chapter Five
The cart they had borrowed from the Shaws trundled down the road to Braecaple. It was piled with provisions and an item or two of poor furniture, also on loan from the Shaws. An abundance of whisky bottles clattered precariously at every lurch of the cart, signalling a return to Uncle Ralph’s old vices. His horse was tethered behind them as he had to steer the cart, for Tara could not do it.
‘We will soon be at the cottage, my dear, and there we can get a bit more settled while I engage men to undertake repairs to the main house.’ He patted her knee. ‘Time for a new start, Tara.’
She smiled at him indulgently. Her uncle had been to see the estate several weeks ago but had been tight-lipped about Braecaple on his return, except to say it had been neglected by his late cousin, most shamefully, and not kept up as it should have been. Then two days ago, he had come back to their lodgings and declared that it was more practical that they live in a cottage on the estate, which he variously described as ‘charming’ or as ‘having only the basic comforts, but sufficient for our needs, for now.’
Tara was eager to reach their destination, but the cart had made painfully slow progress over deeply rutted tracks, and they had been bouncing around in it for hours. She dearly hoped they would not get mired, for there was no Laird Ross to heave them out this time.
She cast her mind back to the day in church and his stern, barking conversation. He had been taciturn to the point of rudeness, and his frank and admiring gaze had left her squirming with embarrassment. Yet, he had softened a little since previous encounters, and Tara had glimpsed good humour behind his hulking, stern demeanour. It was a shame that the ever-present thorn in her side, Mistress Shaw, had dragged her away.
She wondered where Callum was and what he was doing as she had not seen him since that day. Not that there had been much opportunity, for her world had shrunk to the kirk on Sundays and the lodging rooms. Other than frequent visits from Reverend Shaw to break the monotony, Tara had been alone while Uncle had gone about Inverness meeting this acquaintance or that, or she had been left under the watchful eye of Mistress Shaw. The frequent solitude meant she had dwelt on her uncle’s strange demeanour to the point of sleeplessness.
She glanced at him. He was not himself, being thinner by the day, and his face grey and drawn, and he often returned to their lodgings smelling of drink and tobacco. He would sway from manic optimism one day, down to bleak depression, and up again, and Tara could no longer read his moods. So she had learnt to tread carefully since coming to Scotland.
They rounded a bend in the path, and the cart lurched to a halt.
‘There, Tara. See,’ said Uncle, pointing to the right. ‘The cottage where we will make a fresh start. It is not much, as I said, but it is homely enough and will be snug through winter.’
‘Are we to bide here all winter?’
‘We shall see,’ he replied vaguely.
There was a low dwelling which must be the cottage, but it was so overgrown that it seemed almost devoured by nature’s green jaws. Ivy obscured one side, and it was surrounded by trees. Grass and weeds had occupied every nook in the low walls, and the thatch was threadbare, the chimney lop-sided and crumbling. A rough path led up to it, overgrown with hollyhocks, dock leaves and dandelions, and an outbuilding lay beyond. A steady gurgle from beyond the trees indicated a stream or river.
Uncle Ralph tethered the carthorse and beckoned her inside. The door squealed open to reveal a gloomy interior. Tiny windows, set low in thick bare walls, let in enough light to illuminate a sparse interior dominated by a huge, blackened hearth at one end. A fire had been set ready, and as her uncle rushed to light it with his flint, Tara looked up at the bare thatch and beams in the roof, wondering if it was sound.
The fire crackled to life, sending smoke into the space and making her cough. Her heart sank. It was just one room, no separate chamber, just two small beds against one wall. There was a high-backed bench set near the fireplace and a long table, which served as both a space to prepare food and a dining table, as far as she could see. A set of shelves held a few basic plates and implements, and there was a pail.
‘Do we have a well, Uncle?’ she asked.
‘No, but the river is just yonder, and you can bring water up.’
She had never done such a thing in her life, but daren’t question him, for he had become very grave. Tara failed to keep her dismay from her face, and her uncle saw it.
His face twisted. ‘See how we have been reduced, Tara.’
‘Tis not so bad, Uncle, and we can make it homely. And it is only until your investments in the south yield a return.’
‘Yes, of course. And I have several schemes in motion here in Inverness, too. I have been assured of the utmost discretion from Penry as to our present difficulties. I am mindful that potential investors might be reluctant to deal with me otherwise. So we must think of this stay as an adventure of sorts until our affairs are righted.’
‘Yes, Uncle. I will fetch our things from the cart. Why don’t you take some rest before the fire.’
‘I think I will, Tara, yes. It has been a long morning.’
***
Several hours later, Ralph Hennaut was still in a deep sleep before the fire, twitching in some bad dream or other. Tara was tired from hauling in sacks of flour and provisions. There was nowhere to store anything, so she made do as best she could and fetched water from the river - a precarious business as it was heavy with rain. Eventually, she found a rope and was able to toss the pail in and retrieve it full without drowning in the surging water. She untethered the horses, and after a lot of tugging and blaspheming on her part, she managed to get them into the shelter of the outbuilding that passed as a barn. At least she was busy and had a purpose, and though it was rough, the cottage represented freedom from the prison her lodgings had become.
Tara banked up the fire with extra logs and laid a blanket around her uncle’s knees. She put her hands to the small of her back and stretched out her neck. What to do now? Uncle had said Braecaple was but a short walk away, further along the path from the road. Through small, dusty windows, Tara spotted a path snaking into the trees, and though it was gloomy, with drizzle outside, curiosity got the better of her, and Tara set off.
The woods were dark and dense on either side of the path, and there was a heavy silence to them. But the trees soon gave way to open ground, nestled in the loop of the river, but long overgrown with tussocks of grass, brambles and dead wildflowers, their seed heads hanging on brown stalks.
Tara gasped when she looked up at Braecaple Manor. The house would once have been fine indeed, with a tower at its centre and two vast wings, three stories high, rising on either side. But its days of glory were long gone. One wing had crumbled from the top down and was virtually derelict. The front door hung off its hinges, and the stone steps leading to it were crumbling away. Windows were broken or unshuttered.
Behind it, the river gurgled on in full flood from recent rains, lapping high against its banks and threatening to overspill them into the surrounding fields. Thank goodness their cottage was on higher ground.
Tara held up her skirts and picked her way up to the doorway. On entering, she was swallowed by the gloom, and as her eyes adjusted, Braecaple’s fall from grace was plain to see. Tara wandered around rooms full of debris – broken furniture, old scraps, layers of dust that rose up as she entered, making her cough, and stinking rushes. The place smelled of damp and animal droppings, and a scuttling sound came from the floors above, indicating that rats had taken over the decaying building. It seemed her family had fallen, where the rats now lived like kings.