CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
‘To be honest, Sage, these walls will be glad to have some life inside them again. Mrs M and I rattle about but it’s all been rather dreary since we moved here permanently.
I rarely see anyone any more – it’s good for me to be reminded how to live more normally again.
’ Kestrel smiled bashfully at her. ‘I am regarded as something of an eccentric around here. I have strange pets and keep unusual hours. A hermit who lives with his childhood nurse. I do hope you and Hal won’t find me too strange.
Rafe calls me a “character”.’ Kestrel let out a bark of laughter and sloped off to take the bag upstairs, calling back to her, ‘We used to have footmen and butlers to do all this – now it’s just me, I’m afraid. ’
Sage listened to him trudging up the stairs, whistling Vivaldi. She shook her head, trying to clear it, then turned to her son who was stroking Hotchi-Witchi’s quills gently with a cautious finger.
‘Hal, darling. Leave the poor creature alone now. Go and put your boots and coat on – you’re going fishing again. Twice in one day!’ She thought back to earlier that morning in Cornwall; it seemed like days ago.
Hal carefully transferred Hotchi-Witchi from the glove back into the warming oven and trotted off to dress for the weather.
Sage followed him out into a stone passage and came upon a room filled with fishing paraphernalia and an assortment of stags’ heads and taxidermied salmon on its walls.
Kestrel ambled in and pulled a child-sized yellow life jacket and a horse’s tail bandage down from a cupboard.
‘My dear Papa always used to tie me into the boat when I was a small boy. I had a tendency to frequently topple in,’ Kestrel said, brandishing the green bandage.
‘Right – I think we’re all set. Ready?’ he asked Hal, who had dressed himself in his waterproof coat and wellington boots. He nodded eagerly.
‘Weather has cleared already,’ Kestrel continued, peering out of the window. He grabbed the nearest rod and a little box, then opened the back door and whistled for the dogs. ‘Let’s go.’
Sage watched them make their way down to the beach, where a little boat was sitting on the shore.
There were rocks and seaweed everywhere.
Kestrel lifted Hal into the wooden vessel and then stooped to roll his trousers up, stepping easily into the frigid water.
He steered the hull through the greyish-blue boulders covered in their sludge-green, shining algae mantles until the water was deep enough for the boat to float, then deftly leapt in and began to row out into the middle of the loch, with the dogs leaping and splashing beside them.
Hal was soon tethered to the wooden seat and Sage watched as he leant over the side to look into the water’s depths.
The dogs retreated to terra firma and began barking encouragingly at their master from the shore.
Sage decided to investigate their rooms.
Although Rasaay House was apparently not as grand as Kestrel’s ancestral seat, it was still a substantial home, having been designed for a large family and their retinue of household staff.
On reaching the first-floor landing, Sage had no fewer than seven heavy oak doors from which to choose.
She tentatively approached the one that stood ajar and, feeling like an intruder, peeped around it.
She was glad to find their bag at the foot of a magnificent four-poster bed that was dressed in thick drapery, faded by the sun.
The room’s walls were lined with tartan fabric, making it feel cosy and warm despite the enormous window looking out over the grey loch and the slumbering mountains with their wrap of ethereal mist and low cover of storm-brewed clouds.
A fire had just been lit and it crackled comfortingly in the grate.
Sage stepped through another open doorway and found herself in an adjoining dressing room, traditionally furnished with two dusty wardrobes and a huge chest of drawers with silver brushes regimentally laid out on top of it.
A single bed was made up with sheets and blankets.
Perfect, she thought, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. She and Hal were safe, for now.
The infamous Mrs M arrived back at about six o’clock.
Kestrel and Hal were outside, cooking their mackerel on a hastily made campfire.
Each sat on a log seat, while the two wolfhounds stood like slavering sentinels either side of them, watching the seaweed-wrapped fish bake in a tin tray.
Kestrel had asked Sage to lay the table for four places.
After some investigation, she found a large oak canteen that contained a copious amount of silver cutlery.
She made her discovery in the softly lit library, which, it transpired, doubled up as a dining room.
A long, shining dining table stood incongruously amidst the thousands of books that lined the walls, imprisoned behind wire doors.
There would be room for twenty places if they needed it, Sage thought, and wondered how to position only four settings without making it look comical.
Kestrel’s ancestors looked down from their oil canvases set above the bookshelves on the high walls, their solemn eyes watching her as she moved about the room.
She shivered slightly as a cold draught whipped about her ankles.
‘Hello. You must be Sage.’ The greeting came out of the gloom in brusque, no-nonsense tones.
Sage spun around to find a small, sturdy woman dressed all in tweed.
She had a head of wiry grey hair and was shrewdly observing Sage through large, gold-framed spectacles.
‘I am Mrs M,’ she volunteered, striding across the room to offer Sage a hand.
‘Now, have the boys cooked anything to go with the fish?’
Sage, quite taken aback, shook herself mentally and remembered her manners.
‘How do you do?’ She took the woman’s rough hand, then went on, ‘No, that’s a very good point – I don’t believe we’d thought that far yet, it’s just the fish that’s being cooked at the moment.’
Mrs M began to bustle about, pulling tablecloths, napkins, plates and crystal glasses out of sideboards and laying them efficiently at one end of the table, along with the cutlery, which she had taken from Sage’s hand with a smile.
‘I will go and put some rice on in the kitchen. Come with me.’
Sage followed meekly, glad to be given direction. Mrs M pushed the lid of the Aga up and put some water on to boil.
‘I see no vegetables have been picked.’ She sighed.
‘Kestrel is a good boy – he will always be “the Little Lord” to me, even though he is now the Duke – but he cares more for the bottle than for food. The sweet boy … I thought of leaving when we learnt that the house was to be sold but I know that he needs me, so here I am.’ Mrs M spoke softly, almost to herself, and Sage did not know whether to answer or not.
Instead, she sat quietly watching Kestrel and Hal through the window, their faces glowing from the firelight throwing shadows into the half-light.
When Mrs M fell silent, bending down to check on the hedgehog in her makeshift nest of towels in the oven, Sage stood up.
‘Shall I go and fetch some vegetables from somewhere? Is there a kitchen garden?’
‘No, no. It’s too late now. I brought some tomatoes back with me – we can have a salad instead this evening.
We don’t always insist on formalities, you know.
Now, you go up to your bath and dress for dinner.
I will look after the child. Tonight he can eat with us, but I will have tea prepared for him earlier tomorrow and put him to bed at the proper time, and dinner will be back to the usual three courses.
We mustn’t let standards slip altogether. ’
Mrs M brushed past Sage in order to gather ingredients for the salad dressing and as she did so, she whispered conspiratorially, ‘Try to distract His Grace and magic the bottle away out of his reach, will you, dear? He is a little too fond of the strong stuff, it’s such a worry.
’ The normally restrained Mrs M sensed an immediate ally in Sage.
She probably shouldn’t have turned up with a bottle of whisky then, she chided herself. ‘Of course. I’ll do my best.’
It had been a long day, and Sage suddenly felt weary.
She wondered what had happened at Penrose, and whether Santiago had actually turned up.
She looked at her mobile again but it stubbornly still had no signal.
She wanted to call North Place and Casper.
She wanted to talk to Rafe, check that he and her father were all right.
She walked down the steps that led out into the garden, the cold flagstones making her stockinged feet numb as they touched the damp first breath of dew on the floor.
She slipped on her boots that she had left by the door and made her way purposefully out to where the boys were gazing into the flames, the blue-black smoke drifting into shapes as it floated up and away into the dusk under a steaming whisper of more rain to come.
Kestrel smiled and raised a hand in welcome, the other lovingly cradling a crystal glass.
‘Want one?’ he asked genially, inclining his head at the half-empty bottle on the log beside him.
‘I’d love to when this one is in bed. Thank you.’ Sage saw that there was no way of parting him from the bottle without being overbearing, so she gave it up for the time being, sending a telepathic apology to Mrs M. ‘Kestrel, please may I use your phone?’