Chapter 9
NINE
‘It’s all very well living at a castle,’ Aunt Joan opined loudly. ‘But there are mice, you know. And the heating clanks.’ She squinted at Sorrel over her knitting. ‘Well, come here, girl. Give your great-aunt a kiss.’
Sorrel put down her duffel bag and walked over to Aunt Joan stiffly, planting a polite kiss on her papery cheek.
‘Hello, auntie,’ she said, and turned to greet her other aunt, Aunt Chrissie, who sat next to her sister, poised like an empress. They both occupied matching leather wing-backed chairs, side by side in front of the fire: an empty sofa sat opposite.
She’d arrived, dutifully, in time for elevenses. Heather had insisted on coming with her, and had talked Sorrel’s ear off about her upcoming wedding in the car on the way over. Bluebell had accompanied them, but she’d still hardly said anything to her sister.
Sorrel had had precisely no sleep since she’d arrived on Skye.
After her walk and lunch with her sisters the day before, she’d then had to share Bluebell’s bed in the caravan, and even though she was exhausted, there hadn’t been any room to relax because she was poised on the edge of the bed all night.
In truth, Sorrel was looking forward to settling into one of the bedrooms at the castle and getting a decent night’s sleep.
‘Well, I don’t think you’d enjoy staying at the caravan, Aunt Joan,’ Sorrel said, politely, taking a bone china cup filled with fragrant amber tea from her aunt and placing it carefully on the saucer in front of her.
‘I would not,’ Aunt Joan agreed. ‘Though I can hardly sleep with the noise of the plumbing here. And the draughts.’ She shivered theatrically and pulled her shawl around her shoulders.
‘You poor thing,’ Aunt Chrissie ignored her sister, and turned to Sorrel instead.
‘Just as well that James is letting you stay here. Aren’t you, dear?
’ She turned to James Balhennie, the Laird, and gave him an indulgent smile.
‘So kind of him, isn’t it? Of course, it’s nothing that she doesn’t deserve.
Being blood, and all.’ Chrissie raised her eyebrow imperceptibly at the Laird, who nodded.
‘Indeed. We have a room ready for you, Sorrel,’ – he stood to the side of the aunts – ‘and I am having someone come to look at the plumbing, Joan. But it’s old. Like the castle. You have to allow the old girl some latitude.’
‘Thank you so much, Uncle James. I really appreciate it.’ She smiled up at him, noticing that the lines around his eyes were a little deeper; his beard was more salt-and-pepper than auburn now, and his hair was a little longer than she remembered it.
But he still had the same warm smile and the same quiet but authoritative manner.
Today he was dressed very casually, in blue jeans and a cream cable knit jumper over a tartan shirt with work boots.
It was rare to see the Laird of Balhennie Castle in anything other than practical clothes, but Sorrel knew that James could still turn out smartly, just like her father could when he chose, in their clan tartans and formal dress.
Sorrel knew that there were four large main downstairs rooms that were sometimes open to the public: the large drawing room, the library, the lounge and the formal dining room. Today they had gathered in the small drawing room, which was always closed to tourists.
The smaller drawing room was decorated with dark blue damask wallpaper, tan leather wing-backed chairs and sofas, and boasted a series of large oil paintings of various Balhennie ancestors on the walls.
Sorrel, Heather and their aunts sat next to a low, oval walnut coffee table, inlaid with two concentric oval lines of mother-of-pearl.
Sorrel knew that the large drawing room held the Flag of the Old Ones, the family heirloom that Angus was obsessed with.
Housed safely in a magnificent gold frame, it was a major attraction for tourists, all of whom loved to listen to James tell its history at one of his special talks.
As children, they’d touched the frame reverently for good luck.
There was the library, which had a vast marble-topped fireplace that was so tall and cavernous that you could stand inside it if you hunkered down, and a collection of beautiful old leather-bound books in burgundy, blue and brown.
In the lounge, there was a TV, two huge, deep and sumptuous velvet sofas and a bar; Sorrel knew that James liked to watch sports in there in his rare downtime.
And there was a formal dining room, with space for twenty around a large, round mahogany dinner table.
When she’d been young, Sorrel remembered family dinners around that table. They were happy times; running around the castle, playing in the gardens, sneaking into the unused East Wing where all the furniture was covered over with dustsheets, and hiding under them.
‘Hmph,’ Aunt Joan scowled at the Laird. Joan and Chrissie were Catriona’s aunts, so not Balhennies themselves; Sorrel knew that James was putting them up as a favour to Catriona, who he had always liked.
But Sorrel also guessed that the aunts – particularly Aunt Joan – were likely wearing their welcome a little thin.
‘Nothing wrong with old girls. You should respect your elders.’
James looked confused, which was understandable.
‘Have you many bags, Sorrel? Claire, the housekeeper, will help you settle in. I’ll send her up shortly.’ The Laird turned to her and gave her a warm smile. ‘It’s nice to see you again, may I say. We thought we lost you.’
‘I never gave up,’ Bluebell said, softly. ‘I knew she’d come back, one day. I emailed Sorrel every month. She never replied, but I knew she was reading them. I just knew. Sister-radar.’
Sorrel’s heart ached at the sad tone in her sister’s voice.
‘Really? Email?’ Aunt Chrissie’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t say, dear. You mean, on the computer?’
‘Yes. On the computer,’ Bluebell replied, patiently.
‘You know, I still don’t understand how it gets from one computer to another. Surely it would be more efficient in the post. A letter with a stamp,’ Aunt Chrissie meandered.
‘Chrissie! You are ridiculous. It’s like technology has completely passed you by!’ Aunt Joan tutted, and held up a smartphone. ‘You should get one of these. I talk to people all over the world with mine. That’s how I keep up with the wrestling news.’
‘Oh, I don’t want one of those.’ Aunt Chrissie waved her hand dismissively. ‘I take the newspaper and my novels, and that’s enough.’
‘Fibber. Your main source of information is the hair salon.’ Aunt Joan rolled her eyes. ‘What those old biddies having their blue rinses know about the World Wide Web, you could fit into a gnat’s handbag.’
‘We’re old biddies, unless you’d forgotten, dear,’ Aunt Chrissie replied fondly.
‘Over my dead body.’ Aunt Joan tsked, then went on the offensive. ‘Since we’re seeing our great-nieces, I do think you could have worn one of your nicer cardigans.’
‘I thought this was rather nice.’ Aunt Chrissie looked down at the baby pink hand-knitted cardigan with pearl buttons.
‘Did you?’ Aunt Joan screwed up her face as if she was trying to see something very far away.
‘Well, I mean, I think it’s very pretty, Auntie,’ Sorrel intervened, and then interrupted her aunts.
‘Thank you, Uncle James. It’s nice to see you too.
’ What she didn’t say was that Angus was furious about her staying at the castle, and she’d left him and her mother having a discussion about it that morning.
It was a discussion, and not an argument, because her parents never really argued.
Catriona stayed calm and worked an issue through reasonably, and Angus got emotional, purged his feelings, and then calmed down.
Sorrel had left after her father had gripped her solemnly by both shoulders and tearfully assured her that he loved her.
You can be as cross as you like, my love, but the fact remains that Sorrel can’t spend another night sharing a bed with her sister, her mother had been saying as she stepped down from the caravan onto the grass outside. There’s lots of room at the castle. James is happy to have her.
Sorrel also thought it was likely that her mother was keen not to be under the same roof as her estranged daughter.
She had absolutely no clue whether Catriona wanted to make things up with her or not – and whether it would ever be possible.
But Sorrel did. That was something she was realising, being back with her family.
She wanted to heal the rifts between them.
James wants to steal my family! Sorrel had heard Angus shout as she’d walked over to where Heather was waiting by her car.
Good to be back? Heather had raised a wry eyebrow as they’d got in the car.
Like I never left, she’d replied, tersely.
Now, Heather sat to the left of Aunt Chrissie. She had her own reasons for coming: as she was due to get married in a few months’ time at the castle, she was keen to make sure that everything was still all right with the Laird.
It was going to be a Christmas wedding. Heather had told Sorrel on the car ride over all about how she and Catriona had been planning it for the past months, but actually, a wedding was a lot to plan in a relatively short period of time as most brides had a year or more, and if you wanted a good dress you had to order it a year in advance and that was even knowing what you wanted.
Bluebell had looked sullen as Heather prattled on about flowers and pipers and amuse-bouche, but Sorrel was happy for her sister.
However, she had to admit that the idea of a wedding made her heart twist with grief. She hadn’t heard anything from Simon since she’d left two days ago. She presumed that he was enjoying himself in Teresa’s bed and, if anything, was ignoring her absence altogether.