Chapter 7
W hen Fraser Bell plays the bagpipes at 9 a.m. under my window each morning for the next week, it is the only time of the day that I get out of bed. On the second day, I told Mrs Buchanan I wasn’t well, which is half true, just the kind of ill that her constant supply of Lemsips and Balmoral honey can’t really fix. Worried that our damp hack where she forced me to brave the Scottish elements in just a summer dress was enough to destroy my weak, spoiled, city-girl immune system, she at least let up with her comments after the third day.
At first, the only reason for my getting out of bed was to close the window. With no threat of being woken by sirens at 3 a.m., I had left the window open overnight so I could fall asleep to the rhythmic drip of rain against the sill. But now, as I find my brain growing more disordered, more noisy, I stand behind the netted curtain and allow the harshness of the melody to overwhelm everything else. Drown out the constant reminders that Atticus still hasn’t returned my calls, that Kitty seems to have forgotten I ever existed, and that my father has seemingly been communicating strictly with Mrs Buchanan, using her as a way to pass on his messages without having to be troubled by whatever I have to say in return.
Fraser stands below me this Tuesday morning, in his familiar uniform, playing his familiar melodies, allowing me a moment’s peace in the few seconds where music overthrows this place. When a distinctly dissonant note punctuates the end of the musical phrase, it startles me forward, out from behind the anonymity of the curtain. Upon seeing me, with his expression one of complete seriousness, and not a hint of a dimple in sight, Fraser bows his head, about-turns, and marches back down the garden path.
‘Knock, knock.’ A soft voice accompanies a rap at the door. Sophie’s face peers around the doorway, her dark plaits swinging against the frame. ‘Are you decent?’ she asks, already stepping in and busying herself by picking up the various items of clothing strewn across the floor.
‘Well, would it have made any difference if I was?’ My voice is hoarse from the lack of use, but I almost manage a smile in her direction when she shrugs in reply. Sophie goes to pull down the pair of trousers that I had thrown over the stag’s head and I place a hand on her arm to stop her. ‘I don’t like him looking at me in bed.’ I cringe, and she gives an understanding nod.
‘I’ve been sent to get you ready.’ She plucks out various items of clothing before scurrying off to the bathroom. Only returning after the sound of running water and a soft cloud of steam follows her out, Sophie looks at me expectantly.
‘Ready for what?’ My brain seems to take a while to shift into gear, and all I can do is stand in the middle of the room, wrapped in my dressing gown, feeling completely and utterly lost.
‘Well, I say I’ve been sent …’ she blabbers, ‘that might have been a lie. Today is my day off. I’m taking you on a tour.’ She doesn’t bother to look at me, only continues to buzz around the room, returning it to an almost human standard.
‘A tour? A tour of what?’
‘Of here, of course. The people, the secrets, the best spots to get the Wi-Fi. You know, all the important stuff.’ She stops her fussing for a moment to look at me. ‘Now get yoursel in that bath because – no offence, my lady – you’re absolutely honking.’ For the first time in seven days, I crack a full smile, and cannot keep in the spluttering laugh that bursts from me.
Sophie pushes me gently towards the bathroom, handing me a hairbrush as she goes. ‘You know, Sophie, just because you say “no offence”, or use my title, it doesn’t simply negate all of the insult of your sentence,’ I say, still laughing.
‘Well, you needed someone to tell you the truth. If your hair gets any more feral, we’ll be having to put a pair of trousers over your head once they’ve mounted you on the wall.’ Handing me a towel, she shoves me into the bathroom and closes the door behind me.
‘Charming!’ I say to the wooden backside of the bathroom door.
‘Hurry up, there’s lots to get through.’
I don’t need telling twice. Washing myself quickly, I allow the warm water just long enough to seep into my skin, thaw my bones, and get the blood pumping back around my body to kick-start my motivation once again. Afraid of Sophie’s wrath, I don’t give myself long enough to let my mind wander as it usually does, and as soon as I feel almost presentable again, I re-emerge. After dressing in the clothes she has laid out for me on the side, I leave the bathroom to find the room returned to an unlived-in state. The only proof I have been rotting in this room for a week is the pair of culottes, still draped over the stag. Sheets have been changed, not a speck of dust has settled on any surface, and not a single pair of underwear remains on the carpet.
‘You did all of this yourself?’ I stare at Sophie as she straightens a few of the trinkets on the chest of drawers.
‘Oh God no.’ She chuckles. ‘We’re a bunch of worker bees in this place.’
‘I didn’t even hear you,’ I say, a little disturbed at the thought of more than just Sophie rooting through my things.
‘Of course you didn’t. That’s exactly how we’re trained: never be seen or heard, finish the job with maximum efficiency.’ She grins and her thick dark eyebrows slope in a way that makes her whole face look soft and welcoming. ‘It’s likely that you’ll never see half of the people who work here. You’ll only see those of us who aren’t that great at our jobs.’
We have staff back in London, so I am regretfully used to such things: my room is cleaned whilst I am out, the rest of the house is taken care of when none of us are around. To give the illusion that the place is just so naturally well kept, we don’t see them, and to make sure they have no interactions with us that they can sell to the papers, they hardly see us either. Balmoral feels different, however. There is a hum within it, as though it is alive and breathing. Most of all, however, Sophie is different. Always told I need not socialise with ‘people like her’, now that she stands before me, all smiles, I can’t help but feel as though I have missed out on some happier company.
‘Are you ready?’ Sophie asks and I look down at myself. Another scratchy jumper, paired with some ever so slightly too small jodhpurs, and my dripping blonde hair make for a rather interesting outfit, but I don’t have the energy to change any of that now.
Nodding my head, I slide on a pair of slippers and follow her out of my room for the first time in too many days. Sophie gives me a whistle-stop tour of the castle, not bothering to delay to have a good look in any of the rooms and giving a little more information beyond which prime ministers have stayed in which of the fifty-two bedrooms and how many of them she believed would have been visited by Wuthering Heights -esque spirits.
‘Now, I think you should be made aware of some of the politics of this place.’ Her face is deadly serious, and I worry for a moment that this is some sort of Scottish initiation. ‘There are those of us who are permanent Balmoral staff – you know, your standard, housekeeping, kitchen staff, garden staff. And there are the staff who travel with the household. Think Montagues and Capulets, if they were all trapped together on a remote island. And that is putting it politely. The staff that the royals bring always think they are superior, know the best way to run things, enjoy stepping on our toes, telling us how to do our jobs. And we detest them. But that doesn’t stop all of the royal footmen getting off with half the housekeeping staff at the Ghillies Ball and refusing to talk about it again until the following summer.’
‘The Ghillies Ball?’ I ask through my amusement, more than enthralled to be privy to palace gossip that, for once, doesn’t include me as its subject.
‘You know? The annual ball for the family and the staff?’ Excitement seeps from her. ‘We all get really pissed and have a ceilidh with the king and queen! Surely you’ve heard of it?’
‘Can’t say I have. Although, I am very upset that I have been deprived of such an evening for so long.’
‘Well Queen Victoria and Prince Albert started the tradition. It’s essentially an evening for the royals and us staff to mingle as equals. My grandmother once danced with the crown prince, and she told us that story every Christmas until she died. It’s a night where just about anything goes. Well, at least that’s everyone’s excuse for getting off with the people they have spent the summer swearing they hate.’ She skips a little further down the hallway before stopping dead at the next window. The tall frame is almost double her height and floods her with light, illuminating the grin that grows across her face.
‘What is it?’ I ask tentatively, a little unnerved by the sudden look of mischief that crosses her face.
‘Speaking of …’ Sophie raises a cheeky eyebrow and gestures out of the window. ‘Have you ever wondered why the Buchanan has a particular distaste for Jimmy, when he is perhaps the only fella in this place who I’ve never heard say a bad word against anyone?’
The two of them are where I saw them on the lawn last week. The groundskeeper with his familiar smile, the housekeeper with her scowl. As she chases his dog across the damp grass, I see that Mrs Buchanan’s pinafore is stamped with muddied pawprints, and Jimmy is bent double with laughter. ‘I had always thought it just part of her constitution,’ I reply, intrigued. ‘I thought she took the same unwelcoming tone with everyone.’
‘No, you see, she does like to act as though she is miserable and scary. She might mother you, but with good intentions. Most of the time. No, with Jimmy it’s different.’ Sophie wiggles her eyebrows, and we watch as Mrs B shifts her attention from the dog, to Jimmy, pointing her bony finger at him as she unleashes her wrath.
‘You don’t mean …’ I begin to understand the meaning of her dancing eyebrows and the delighted stare in her eye.
‘Oh I do.’ She can’t control her laughter as it echoes through the stone halls.
‘Mrs Buchanan, and … Jimmy?’
‘Snogging in the billiards room. Caught them myself two years ago.’ She looks so proud of herself as she tells the story. ‘They’ve hated each other ever since.’
‘Isn’t she married?’
‘Widowed. Few of the older lot say she used to be happier when her husband was alive. He was the fun one. Stable master. Never said anything with a straight face. She got all uptight after he died apparently.’
A pang of pity rushes through me as I watch her now with Jimmy. A woman hardened against happiness. They say that to love is to be changed, but what happens when your greatest love is lost, and there’s no way of being who you once were again? To have to go through life with your favourite part of yourself missing must be like relearning how to crawl as a caterpillar when you’re already a fully-fledged butterfly.
Although I shan’t be here long, I decide in that moment that I shall make it my mission to leave some semblance of a fairy tale behind in this lonely castle. If I am to return to London to spend forever with the love of my life in just five weeks, it’s only right that I put this short time that I’m here to good use. Everyone deserves to be loved, even miserable old housekeepers whose faces have forgotten what it feels like to smile.
‘Sophie …’ It’s my turn to look at her with a brazen grin. ‘I think I’ve come up with an idea that may just help me pass my time here.’
‘I reckon I’ll like where you’re going with this.’