CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
They were on the road for almost two hours.
Talking was hard over the rattle of the loud engine, so they all remained companionably quiet.
Sage was worrying about her grandparents, praying that Santiago had left them alone.
She wanted to speak to Casper to check on them all.
She turned on her phone and held her breath.
No messages had come through but she wondered how she would manage to speak to Rafe as there was hardly any signal and they were travelling further and further away from civilization by the minute.
Eventually, Kestrel turned off the tarmac onto a farm track.
Hal and the two dogs’ heads appeared expectantly between the front seats.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’
‘Nearly!’ Kestrel replied merrily.
They bumped along for another five minutes or so.
The lane was bordered by shortly cropped grass fields on which grazed sheep who wore lustrously thick, white woollen coats over their furry black stick legs.
They turned a corner and Sage let out a gasp.
Purple, green and orange snow-capped mountains lay like slumbering elephants around a glassy, mirror-like loch.
Geese honked noisily as they flew in formation above the car and skimmed over the surface of the water before landing in a flap of feathered white wings.
Rays of burnished sunshine burst through the grey covering of low-slung clouds, illuminating patches of earth and the ripples on the water and making them glow like polished gold.
Lone drops of rain spattered intermittently onto the windscreen.
‘The weather is rather wild up here. It changes all the time – we might have breakfast in the sunshine, and supper in the snow. Are you hungry? I was thinking we could go out in my little boat and catch some supper, Hal. I heard that you’re quite a proficient fisherman.
Shall we let your mumma have a little break and go together?
’ Kestrel turned to look at the child’s eager round face between the shaggy wolfhounds.
‘Yes, please!’ Hal said eagerly, a hand on each dog, adding, ‘Can Myrtle and Thistle come?’ His voice had a slight lisp and Thistle’s name came out as ‘Thithle’, making Sage and Kestrel laugh.
‘Well, they love fishing – but maybe this time we’ll leave them to keep an eye on things. Can you swim, sailor?’ Kestrel asked Hal.
‘I can, if someone holds me up,’ Hal replied solemnly.
‘Life jacket it is!’ Kestrel patted Hal affectionately on the head like a dog.
‘And promise that you will do exactly as Kestrel tells you?’ Sage twisted around to make eye contact with Hal.
‘I promise.’
As they rounded another bend, a large, white-gabled house came into view.
It sat regally on a small hill, alone in its splendour for apart from some outhouses in the surrounding fields, there was not another building in sight.
The house was elegantly proportioned, with dormant roses rambling up its walls and its extensive gardens leading down to a pebble beach and the loch beyond.
‘Oh, wow,’ said Sage, with a gasp. ‘It’s incredible. What a magical place.’
Kestrel looked at her stunned face in surprise. The garden was still asleep.
‘Have you ever been to Scotland before?’ he asked, driving right up to the house.
‘No, never.’ Sage gazed out of the window in wonder.
‘Welcome to Rasaay House – and I suppose it’s welcome to Scotland too, then!
’ Kestrel turned off the engine and held out his arms expansively; he already had his bottle of whisky clutched in his right hand, and it clanged against the closed window as he did so.
‘I wish I could take you to my real home up here but, well, we’re selling it.
’ He seemed profoundly sad for a moment.
The rain had begun in earnest now, hammering down on the roof and lashing against the windows of the car.
He physically shook himself. ‘Let’s make a dash for it.
You both go on ahead, and I’ll bring the bag. ’
The house was dark and cool inside. The floors were flagstones throughout but Sage asked Hal to take off his wet shoes and slipped hers off too, putting them neatly by the door.
‘Oh, bless you, but we don’t stand on ceremony here, Sage.
’ Kestrel flew into the house, dropping their bag at the bottom of the stairs before tramping past them and straight through to the kitchen in his dirty boots.
Sage paused and looked around the hall before following him.
Weak light was pouring in through large sash and case windows, revealing dust that covered every surface.
The house appeared full to bursting with stunning ancient furniture too big for the spaces into which it was crammed.
In the kitchen, the green Aga was grimy and had one of its oven doors hanging open, while washing-up stood stacked in precarious piles in the enormous double Belfast sink.
‘Sorry, the place is lacking a woman’s touch at present,’ said Kestrel, surveying the mess as though seeing it for the first time.
‘My nanny, Mrs M, normally keeps things in order but she has been away at her sister’s house in Carlisle for a few weeks.
I believe she’s coming back some time today, though.
The house was only a hunting lodge really, but now it’s home.
’ He glanced at the calendar on the wall, then remembered something else.
‘Oh, and don’t close the door of the stove – Hotchi-Witchi is sleeping in there. ’
‘Who is Hotchi-Witchi?’ Hal asked, peering curiously into the warming oven.
Did he really say his ‘nanny’? thought Sage, wondering if she had misheard him.
Kestrel put his hand into the oven and, to their surprise, produced a small, snuffling hedgehog.
‘This is Hotchi-Witchi.’ He held the little creature out towards Hal, whose eyes were lit up with excitement. Hal opened up his hand; Hotchi-Witchi let out a hiss of indignation at the scent of a stranger, and hastily curled up into a spiky ball.
‘Ouch!’ Kestrel laughed and passed Hal an oven glove. ‘Here, try wearing the gauntlet – she might be a bit more friendly.’
Hal placed the glove on his tiny hand and held it out again.
Kestrel gently rolled the hedgehog onto the glove and she cautiously unrolled to reveal a white furry chest and tiny pink feet.
Her snout twitched from side to side as she started to assess Hal with dark beady eyes.
Hal held her up at eye level in order to inspect her more closely.
‘Hello,’ he said softly. She continued to warily sniff the air.
‘She got stuck in a cattle grid and broke her leg. That was back in the autumn. She is all mended now but decided to winter here at Rasaay all the same. I let her sleep in the Aga as otherwise she’d get cold and start to hibernate – and we don’t want that, because she’s still quite small and unlikely to make it through a big, long sleep. Would you like to feed her a mealworm?’
Kestrel spoke to Hal with natural ease, not talking down to him but still allowing for his age.
He had a high intellect that worked on a slightly different frequency to other humans and this manifested itself in rather an awkward manner.
He was out of the habit of making troublesome small talk, being more or less a self-imposed recluse, but was anxious to make Sage and Hal feel welcome; he would do anything for his beloved cousin.
Rafe was the one person who seemed to understand Kestrel, to whom he had always been unfailingly kind, especially when the two of them had been boys.
Kestrel had been a thorny and ungainly child, never fitting the mould he was supposed to inhabit and frequently, unwittingly upsetting those around him with his acidic, outspoken observations.
Despite being handsome and – on the whole – charming, he had never been able to keep a girlfriend for very long either.
He always ended up telling them, far too candidly, what he thought of them.
He did not really mind though; he was more interested in being outside and immersing himself in nature than chasing girls.
He watched as an enchanted Hal fed the suspicious hedgehog a worm.
Kestrel was desperate for a drink, but as it was barely two o’clock and he had promised to take Hal out in the boat, he was valiantly resisting the siren call of the bottle standing on the sideboard next to him.
‘Hal and I will go and catch something for supper, Sage – leave you to settle in quietly. You’re in the master bedroom, on the first floor.
I’ll put your things up there. Hal can sleep in the dressing room next door.
’ Kestrel was edging out of the kitchen, determinedly avoiding eye contact with the bottle, when Sage called him back.
‘Wait – where do you sleep? You haven’t given up your room for us, have you?’
‘Oh no, no,’ said Kestrel reassuringly. ‘I sleep up in the nursery, which I’ve always done in this house. I never moved into what you might call a “grown-up room”. Mrs M and I sleep in bedrooms at opposite ends of the attic.’
‘Right,’ Sage said hesitantly. ‘Well, if you’re sure?’