Chapter 3
A tticus isn’t here to see me off. Though I’m sure he is planning something; like storming the train as it passes the border, carrying me from it and taking us both to Gretna Green before anyone notices we have eloped.
I have no doubt that Mother has threatened him. Or offered him something to keep away. But I know Atticus. He wouldn’t take it; he’s biding his time, I’m sure of it. My mother hasn’t come to say goodbye either, but for that I am actually grateful. It has been a week since my fate was sealed, and I have never seen her look so cheery. She was practically dancing around the halls whilst my belongings were gathered together.
I often wonder if she is really my mother. All of the stories you hear, of mothers being the paragon of virtue and affection, who would do anything for their children, have never felt real to me. I believe that part just as much as I believe that pumpkins can turn into carriages. Mothers in fairy tales are these God-like figures, angels incarnate and the greatest tragedy of all for the protagonists is losing her. Mine is the villain in my story.
Often, I think she never wanted a child at all. I suppose it was her duty, as much as behaving myself is mine. Yet if that was the case, why would she be so assiduous about upholding the values of an institution that oppressed her? Why pass her trauma on to me, when she has it well in her power to never allow me the pain she had to go through?
She doesn’t love me, and she certainly doesn’t like me. I suppose that answers most of my inner musings as I watch the staff carry the last of my things to the car.
‘I have arranged a car to collect you from the station in Aberdeen.’ My father hands me my handbag, trying not to make eye contact as he shares his message. Walking by my side to the car, he stops me before we reach it by placing a hand on my shoulder awkwardly. Finally, he looks at me. ‘Use this time, Alice. Become the girl that I know you are. Empty your head of these fairy tales and begin to find who you are, not who you think you want to be.’
Father doesn’t wait for my response, but opens my car door for me. Without another word, he strides back into the house and leaves me baffled on the driveway.
‘Are you ready, my lady?’ The driver startles me out of my daze as my father’s words rattle around my brain. In the absence of my mother is he actually attempting to be a parent? The oddest thing of all is the fact that his advice is almost good. He’s had it in him all along and yet this is still his solution. Keeping his words with me, though putting the worth of them down to being a fluke, I slide into the car without looking back.
Though every inch of me tingles with the threat of tears, I can’t cry. Crying is a privilege, reserved only for those who deserve their sadness. So, I return to numbness, the empty unfeeling that feels better than feeling everything just slightly too much.
‘Ma’am.’ The driver cuts through the overwhelming silence as he turns to me once we pass the threshold of my parents’ driveway. Staring out of the window, though seeing nothing in particular, I acknowledge him only with a hum. ‘There is a gentleman asking for you. Do you know him?’
As though revived by a shot of adrenaline stabbed straight into my heart, I follow his voice, until my eyes settle on Atticus. Stood before the car, a vision of a man determined. He smiles when our eyes meet.
‘Yes, yes, lower the window please.’ The driver does as I ask, and Atticus strides forward and takes my cheeks in his hands.
‘You didn’t think I’d let you leave without saying goodbye, did you?’ I try and shake my head, but his hands clutch me too tightly, so I squeak out my reply instead.
‘I knew you’d come.’ He pinches at one of my cheeks as they swell with my smile. ‘You need to help me. I don’t want to leave; I can’t leave. I can’t leave you .’
Atticus runs his thumb down my cheek and a sad smile overtakes his face. ‘You know I would if I could, my princess, but I can’t stay long.’ My heartbeat pounds in my chest and his hands spread so much heat to my face, I would half think myself on fire.
‘I love you,’ I breathe, and though I’ve said it to him since the second night after we met, it still feels like the first time. So overwhelmed with him, his hands, his smile, his affection, my pulse throbs through me and I could almost cry. Almost.
‘I’m glad.’ He grins as he presses his forehead to mine, before planting a swift kiss in my hair. ‘I have something I must discuss with you, Lady Alice.’
‘My lady, we really should be leaving.’ The driver looks at me from the rear-view mirror, his stare knowing, his expression anxious, but I hardly want to take heed of him or anything other than Atticus in this moment. My heartbeat wooshes in my ears, as though my heart already knows what he is going to say and my brain needs only to focus on his lips.
‘Lady Alice …’ are the words his lips mould to: ‘will you w—’
‘Yes, yes of course.’ I rush, giggling through my straining grin.
‘—write my speech … Oh perfect, I knew I could rely on you.’ He kisses me again on the forehead and the fire in my heart crackles and smokes to an ember as though pissed on without remorse.
‘Speech?’ I can just about squeak out, my cheeks burning with the embarrassment that I had hoped for a weightier question.
‘Yes, darling. Daddy has decided to step down from the company and I shall be taking over as chairman by the middle of August and I shall need a speech for the shareholders’ meeting they will be hosting in my honour. I know you’re always complaining about wishing to write your own.’ One flake of ash rekindles at his final words, a glimmer of hope at the thought he might need me returning.
‘My lady.’ The driver coughs again and Atticus pulls away and presses a note to my palm before turning on his heel and walking back along the pavement as though he never noticed the car to begin with.
Unfolding the headed paper, my heart swells at the smudged lettering: Wait for me. A .
It is short, sweet, and it keeps my head above water for the rest of my journey into nothingness.
In an effort to make it seem as though my family care for the environment, I am bustled onto the 10 a.m. King’s Cross to Aberdeen train. LNER do try their best but their first class often consists of a slightly less scratchy seat and a complimentary biscuit and a cup of tea from a mug that has seen better days.
The view, however, is one of the few reasons that the train isn’t my most detested form of transport. Once liberated from the confines of high buildings and claustrophobic tracks, the country seems to open out. The carriage slashes through open fields, and skirts around the east coast until you are cutting along what feels like a cliff edge, just a seagull’s flight from the sea. For the duration of the seven-hour journey, the view out of the window is one that fails to get boring. Most of the excursion is spent just watching it, as the flat lands of Lincolnshire turn to the moors of Yorkshire, and the rolling hills of Northumberland turn to the Scottish glens, and I have some time to lose myself in my admiration of the world around me.
That is, until the older couple beside me, who keep looking down their noses at everyone who passes through first class under the age of fifty, persistently witter to themselves about how ‘England used to be a proper country’ (whatever that means) all because they have started serving French biscuits from the trolley.
Just as I am fit to fall asleep and we chug through Newcastle, my phone vibrates obnoxiously on the tray before me. Kitty’s name lights up across the screen. The thought that my closest friend hasn’t forgotten about me as soon as I am out of her postcode settles my nerves a little.
‘Alice, my darling bitch!’ Her voice comes through my headphones in a familiar trill.
‘Hey, Kitty,’ I answer and the old couple aim their insulted glare in my direction. I return their intrigue with a churlish sneer and direct my attention to my phone call.
‘I hear there is to be congratulations in order.’ I can almost hear her grin, and I picture her twirling a skinny cigarette between her fingers as she lounges across her antique furniture.
‘Congratulations?’ My confusion is evident in my tone, but she only giggles in reply.
‘What would you prefer: Lady Alice or chairwoman?’ Kitty has a habit of speaking in such a way that I never can tell whether she is being friendly, or just blatantly mocking me. ‘Where are you? It sounds a bit fucking noisy on your end.’
‘Kitty, are you going to get to the point or not?’ I roll my eyes and add, ‘I’m on the train.’
‘Oh lovely, a little proletariat holiday? Experiencing “real life” are we?’ She’s definitely mocking now. ‘Couldn’t Daddy have at least sent you on a plane?’
‘Kitty, I’m being sent to the family in Balmoral. I told you this last week.’ I can’t be bothered to argue with her; in fact, I’m almost glad she didn’t care enough to come and see me off.
‘Oh, did you? Must have slipped my mind.’ She gives a forced titter and continues, ‘You will be back for the meeting, I hope?’
‘Meeting?’ I ask in a bored tone, knowing full well that she has only mentioned it as a way to prove she knows something I don’t.
‘The shareholders’ meeting, silly.’ She giggles to herself, though I know she finds no amusement in her words beyond the power she is holding over me. ‘Surely Atticus has invited you?’
‘Of course he has,’ I bluff. He hasn’t in so many words but he has asked me to write his speech. That’s as good as an invite, right?
‘I see.’ She seems a little deflated but soon perks up again. ‘Well make sure you find somewhere in Ireland that can give you a nice little manicure beforehand.’ I don’t bother to correct her on the fact that Scotland and Ireland are two completely different countries, and one cannot, in fact, get to said country from London via train. She wouldn’t be bothered to understand anyway.
‘And why would that be?’ I roll my eyes again, though it’s only the nosy first-class passengers that are hanging on my every word who are privy to it.
‘Well, he will be proposing, won’t he?’
Suddenly Kitty’s voice becomes the only thing in the universe that matters. The hum of the train, the trundle of the trolley with its shaking teacups, the muttering of the passengers all fall silent as I take note of each of her tinny breaths on the receiver. When only my own shaking ones answer her, she continues, ‘Oops. Didn’t you know?’ Kitty giggles again. ‘Atticus’s father proposed to his mother at this meeting when he became chairman, and then again to his twenty-four-year-old mistress when it was his twenty-fifth anniversary with the company. It’s tradition – something about proving loyalty and stability to the shareholders.’
Proposing? Is that why he mentioned the meeting? Perhaps he doesn’t want me to write a speech at all, but rather just wanted to test the waters, to leave a hint, send me away clinging to the knowledge that in just one month he shall be down on one knee in front of everyone important to him, and I shall no longer be alone.
Only when the car purrs to a halt do I take much notice of my surroundings. I hardly remember getting off the train at all, because my mind has only thought of one thing for the last few hours: Atticus. Realising that we are not yet arrived at Balmoral, but in fact parked up in the car park of a pub called ‘The Balmoral Arms’, I call politely to the driver for the first time this whole journey from Aberdeen, ‘Excuse me, why have we stopped at a pub?’
‘These are my instructions, ma’am,’ he says, only glancing at me momentarily through the rear-view mirror.
‘Well then where are we?’
‘Braemar, ma’am.’
‘Well, there must be some kind of mistake. We are supposed to be going to Balmoral Castle , not some pub with a slightly similar name.’
Before I have time to hear his response, my door is pulled open and a woman stands before me, a riding crop in hand, and wearing wellies, muddied to her knees. ‘There is no mistake, unless you are not Lady Alice?’ she says, her Scottish accent thick. Her tone is clipped, and she has a no-nonsense air about her as she stares at me as though I should know exactly who she is.
I begin to feel my pulse throb erratically in my neck. Am I being kidnapped? Is this all Mother’s plan? Stage a kidnap, put a bag over my head, and send me to some camp where they shave my head and straighten me out? ‘A lady should not divulge her identity to a stranger.’ I try and keep my voice as level as possible, showing no signs of weakness. ‘I wonder if you may be able to help me. My driver seems to have gotten lost on his way to Balmoral Castle. Do you know the roads?’
‘I know every blade of grass in the Highlands, my lady. But your driver is not lost. I have been sent to fetch you.’ She finishes with a little breathy laugh, though there is no real amusement behind her stoic face.
‘Fetch me? But I am already in the car.’ I scan my eyes up and down her attire. Focusing again on the riding crop in her hand, I wonder how I can wangle the weapon out of her hand if needs be. ‘I am quite content here, thank you.’ I sit back into the seat and cross my arms over my chest.
‘You mistake me, my lady. The king is rather fond of the clean air around these parts, and the environment is his pride and joy. He has insisted that no cars must enter the grounds of Balmoral unless for emergencies or matters of state. As your arrival is neither, I have arranged for us to go on horseback.’
‘Excuse me?’ I choke out my response, too dumbfounded to try and mask my emotions.
‘I should introduce myself. I am Mrs Buchanan: housekeeper of Balmoral Castle.’ Pride flows from her as she stands up even straighter than before.
‘You could have opened with that,’ I whinge, too overwhelmed with whatever is happening right now to trouble myself with more false politeness.
‘What was that?’ Though richly Scottish, Mrs Buchanan’s tone reminds me of that of my grandmother; she is neither loud nor angry but so firm, so controlled, that I am startled into submission.
I slide out of the car to meet her face to face, and she glances up and down, shaking her head at the sight before her.
‘Now, I shall make it known from the off that although I have worked for your family almost thirty years, I am no servant. Your father has also insisted that you are not to receive any special treatment, so you will do well not to expect any.’
‘I didn’t ex— I wasn’t—’ Mrs Buchanan cuts me off before I can figure out what I am trying to say.
‘You know how to ride I assume?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Perfect – you shall take Hamish.’ She points to a white stallion tied to the fence. Though I spent much of my childhood learning to ride horses, as every good posh girl does, the size of this particular beast intimidates me. ‘We need to get moving before the rain sets in. It is a two-and- a-half-hour ride for a skilled horsewoman—’ she scans me up and down once again ‘—but I have left us four.’
‘None taken.’ I roll my eyes, though she is right. Living in Central London in the century of Uber, I have had very little need for a horse in recent years, so I must say I am a little out of practice. ‘Do you have anything I can change into before we set out?’ I look down at my outfit. I definitely didn’t wake up this morning expecting a hack through the Scottish wilderness on a chilly July afternoon, and the summer dress I wear proves as much.
‘Didn’t you bring anything suitable in your luggage?’
I think of the array of dresses, pretty pastel socks, and latest shoes straight off the fashion week runway tucked away in my suitcases and admit defeat.
‘Never mind, I am no stranger to riding in a dress.’ A minor face-saving fib, but I hike up the skirt and tuck half of it into the belt around my waist, exposing my leg to the elements. The Scottish air kisses down my calves until a trail of goose bumps are left behind. ‘What shall I do with my bags?’
‘You may carry whatever you can on your saddle now, and then we shall send someone to collect the rest of your things when they next come into town.’ Deciding not to give Mrs Buchanan the satisfaction of ruffling me any further, I stuff the saddle pouches with my underwear and pyjamas (my most important possessions) and set the stirrups to the right length before climbing onto the fence and mounting my steed with ease.
Mrs Buchanan gives a huff and I grin widely for the first time since we met. ‘Shall we?’ I give my stallion a little tap and I set off at a canter. After a moment with the wind in my hair, I turn about to see Mrs B and my driver still laughing with one another at the car, making no attempt to join me. Manoeuvring Hamish back around, we both come to a stop before them.
‘What’s the hold-up?’ I ask, thoroughly irritated. ‘And what’s so funny?’ I add when all they do is continue their childish giggles.
‘Balmoral is that way, my lady.’ My driver points to the opposite direction than I had just flown off to and my cheeks redden.
‘Well, how was I meant to know?’ I complain and sit up straighter in the saddle. The housekeeper swings a leg over her mare and doesn’t wait for me before speeding off down the track.
‘I know every last thread and sock in that suitcase. If anything goes missing or ends up on any sketchy websites, I will know about it,’ I say to the driver, trying my best at a stern face before I follow suit and race through the breeze to catch up to my guide.
As though sent to punish me, it takes less than five minutes of riding in silence before the heavens open and I am given the royally Scottish welcome I’m sure I deserve. Hamish plods on, unperturbed by the downpour as I shiver against his saddle.
Thoughts of Atticus are the only things that warm me, the only reason I’m not currently sobbing into Hamish’s mane. In just six weeks, I will be agreeing to be his wife. He will make all of this right. I know he will. Because he truly loves me, everything will be okay.