Beyond the Wild River Page 8

  Ballantyre came out from behind the desk and sat on the corner of it, one leg crooked across the other, and looked intently at James. ‘But we’ve met before, James Douglas! Last spring, I think. Yes— I wish I’d known then who you were, we could have prevented this. You minded Zeus for me, held the reins while I went into the manse, and we talked.’

  James remembered the occasion well, remembered the shine on the stallion’s coat and the gleam of its rider’s boots. He had dared to ask if the horse was of Irish stock, and Ballantyre had answered him and then stood beside him, discussing the horse’s finer points with him, man to man, before giving him a florin – riches beyond a dream. And for a moment that day he had forgotten that Ballantyre was the enemy, the despised autocrat, and had felt almost shamefaced when he handed the coin to Jacko that evening. But the old poacher had roared with laughter, flicking it into the air, snatching it back as it fell.

  ‘Knew a bit about horses, as I remember,’ Ballantyre remarked, still watching him closely.

  James stayed silent and dropped his eyes to the fireplace; there were more curious animals there, brass dragon-like creatures which curled over the fireguard, their eyes catching the flames. It was during his lonely winter at the inn stables, waiting for Jacko’s release, that he had learned about horseflesh from an Irish ostler there.

  ‘And doubtless the tip I gave you that day just put beer down the old reprobate’s throat.’ Was there nothing the man didn’t know? James was spared a response by a tap on the door and the arrival of a miraculous breakfast; Ballantyre indicated a small table by the fire. ‘Sit down and eat. Then we’ll talk.’ He dismissed the girl who had brought it and went to sit behind his desk, giving his attention to some papers there, allowing James the privacy of his feast. He gulped down the porridge, scalding the roof of his mouth, and watched Ballantyre with a puzzled wariness. He took a drink of the creamy milk, feeling its warmth coursing through him, and then tentatively he lifted a metal cover and found eggs, light and fluffy, steaming beneath it. He glanced again at Ballantyre but he was still intent on his papers, so he ate quickly, wiping up the last morsel with a slice of bread, and then looked up to find that he was being observed.

  ‘Better?’

  His stomach fairly ached with the food. He mumbled his thanks and shuffled to the edge of his seat, unsure whether he should stand again or not, but Ballantyre gestured him to remain where he was and came over to take the armchair opposite him beside the fire.

  ‘Is Jacko your kin?’ he asked, and James shook his head. ‘Have you any family?’ He shook his head again but his heart sank. Orphans went to Rothmere Hall, a cold grim place on the edge of the village. He had seen the children from there paraded weekly down the cobbles towards the church, seen their thin, pinched faces, their eyes dulled by mistreatment and neglect. Could he invent kin? But to what end – he had nowhere to go.

  The food had given him courage, though, and his eyes drifted over to the windows, and to the mechanism for locking them.

  Ballantyre followed his gaze. ‘So you’re an orphan and a vagrant, James Douglas,’ he said, ‘and if Mr McAllister is right you’re also a poacher and a thief.’ James’s eyes fell again and then slid across the floor to the door. Could he reach it before Ballantyre grabbed him? Unlikely – and he’d never find his way out of the house before someone stopped him. ‘But if I send you to Kelso you’ll end up in a reformatory where all you’ll learn is tricks which will set you on the road to ruin. While if I send you to Rothmere Hall you’ll bolt at the first opportunity and we’ll have to catch you all over again.’ He took a cigar from the box beside him and began tapping it on the lid. ‘So – what to do with you, James Douglas?’

  They sat in silence. Ballantyre studied the cigar, trimming the end before lighting it while James secured an errant piece of egg from under the plate and lifted it to his mouth. He glanced again at the window lock, the food now gurgling madly in his stomach.

  ‘Good with horses—’ Ballantyre repeated softly, and James’s eyes went back to him. ‘You won’t find escape through that window, my lad. Not of a lasting type, and besides, it’ll soon be winter. What then?’ He sat forward again, considering James and demanding his attention. ‘So let us discuss another arrangement, shall we? For the offence of trespass, to which you have already confessed’ – he paused, seeking confirmation, and James nodded, wary again – ‘you are in trouble with me, quite regardless of the unsubstantiated charge of poaching.’ Big words, but James got their drift. ‘So if you wish to settle the matter out of court, as I do, you must work in my stables for four weeks. I’ll pay you thruppence a week all found, which means you’ll be fed, housed, decently clothed’ – he glanced down at James’s feet where his dirty toes protruded between sole and upper – ‘and booted. And at the end of four weeks, if I hear good reports of you, I’ll find you further work and pay you a proper wage.’ He paused, then added, ‘You’ll be well treated, James Douglas, but if you run off I’ll have you caught and sent to Kelso, where you will doubtless be thrashed and driven far beyond redemption.’ He then sat back and drew on his cigar, narrowing his eyes against the smoke. ‘What do you say?’

  James felt his face flush with astonishment. ‘Why—?’

  ‘Those are my terms.’ Ballantyre dismissed the unformed question. ‘Accept them or you’re on your way to Rothmere Hall.’

  James stared back at him, and when the man made an impatient gesture he heard himself stammer an acceptance. Ballantyre nodded his satisfaction and got to his feet. ‘Well done,’ he said and went back behind his desk where he unlocked the top drawer and lifted out a green metal cash box. Another key opened it and he took out a coin, and held it up. It was a silver threepenny bit. ‘Your first honest earnings, James Douglas, paid in advance as a token of goodwill. Trust me, young man, and you’ll find me a better friend than Jack McDonald ever was.’

  Chapter 8

  Through the Great Lakes, 1893

  The Valkyrie swung in a wide circle away from its moorings, and smoke from its twin funnels blew back across the curved wake. ‘And so we bid adieu to the White City,’ Larsen called from the helm as his guests joined him on the stern. ‘Did it come up to expectations?’

  ‘Marvellous!’ cried Clementina.

  ‘Quite extraordinary,’ Evelyn agreed.

  ‘Expectations far exceeded, sir.’ Rupert Dalston made a small bow towards Larsen.

  The young man was socially adroit alright, Larsen thought as he relinquished the helm to the waiting skipper and stood for a moment watching the roofscape of the White City fade down the line of their wake. A thin fog hung low along the shore, adding to the unreality of the scene. If they had wind tomorrow they could put up the sails but for now they would take advantage of the calm to make progress under steam. They had some way to go. ‘So!’ he said. ‘Go, my friends, relax and enjoy yourselves.’

  He directed Dalston to where deck quoits were stored in a locker on the port deck, then retired to the shade of the awning, resisting suggestions that he would join them in the game. He pulled his panama hat low across his eyes, declaring that he would sit by and ensure fair play, and watched them from under the rim. Dalston was displaying excellent manners which seemed to come naturally to Englishmen of his class, and Evelyn seemed pleased with his company. With her father’s possible disapproval in mind, Larsen had only extended the invitation to accompany them as far as Port Arthur, from where Dalston could catch a train out west and resume his own plans. It would take them a week, give or take, to cover the distance between Chicago and Port Arthur, longer if the weather played them false, and that would be ample time to see how things developed, and if all went well then perhaps the young man had a taste for fishing—? But that decision would be Ballantyre’s when they met him in Port Arthur, and in the meantime – he tipped his hat forward to cover his nose – he need only to be watchful.

  He dosed until the game ended noisily with claims of sharp practice from both teams, and Evelyn came a
nd dropped into a deck chair beside him, flushed and breathless. ‘The men simply won’t admit themselves beaten, Mr Larsen.’

  ‘Ah, male pride! You must understand, my dear—’

  ‘Beaten, Miss Ballantyre?’ objected Dalston as he collected the quoits. ‘We allowed you to step a good foot closer than we allowed ourselves. So how—’

  ‘Yes! But you set the terms at the outset and we beat you within those terms. So like it or not, you were beaten.’

  The spark of animation became her, and Larsen raised a warning finger to Dalston. ‘Take heed, Dalston, a Daniel is come to judgement!’ He chuckled and patted Evelyn’s hand. ‘Some chilled lemonade, I think, to take the heat out of the debate.’

  After lunch Evelyn stood leaning against the port rail and watched the rocky cliffs and sandy shoreline pass by, the wind snatching at her hair. Ripples fanned out over the lake as the yacht’s elegant prow cleaved the lake water. She looked back to where the others were relaxing under the awning, reading or chatting in a desultory fashion, sipping cool drinks, content to let the afternoon pass. It felt strange to be marooned here on this little ship, leaving civilisation behind; the classical beauty of the White City already seemed like a faraway dream. But then that was what it was, after all: a lovely dream, insubstantial and full of strange contradictions. They had seen little other lake traffic, only the occasional pleasure boat or freighter trailing plumes of black smoke, and fewer even of those this afternoon. Mr Larsen said that they would make only one or two brief stops to take on coal and provisions but would otherwise press on northwards to where Lake Michigan met Lake Superior. There was little to stop for anyway, he had said, and indeed lakeside settlements had become more sporadic as they travelled through the afternoon with longer stretches of unbroken forest in between. It would take them another day or two to reach the head of Lake Michigan, and there would be time to go ashore there, if they wished, while the yacht passed through the lock system. And from there they would continue on to Port Arthur, their destination at the head of Lake Superior, and meet her father.

  What a vast country this was—

  ‘So, Miss Ballantyre.’ She turned her head to find that Rupert Dalston had come up beside her, glass in hand. ‘Still gloating over your spurious triumph?’ he asked, leaning back against the rail, and facing her.

  His hair too was being blown about by the wind, and his boyish smile was hard to resist. ‘Of course.’ She looked out towards the shore again, shy suddenly. But the informality on board was delightful, and such a contrast to the starchiness at home where a simple friendship had been so completely misunderstood—

  ‘This is quite an adventure, don’t you think?’ he added. ‘Much more fun than going on the dreary railway. It’s like being at sea—’

  ‘It’s hard to believe this is just a lake.’

  ‘It’ll take us about a week, I hear, maybe more.’

  ‘Yes.’

  A little silence fell. Then: ‘I was awfully glad to be asked along, you know,’ he said, his eyes still on her as he sipped his drink. ‘Time for us to get acquainted, don’t you know, thrown together like this—’

  Was he flirting? She wasn’t sure. ‘Lucky you could change your plans,’ she replied. He had the most extraordinary blue eyes, clear and piercing, but she found it difficult to hold their gaze, and looked away again. ‘Mr Larsen is a generous-hearted man.’

  ‘He most certainly is.’ They watched a flock of shrieking gulls swoop onto their wake as leftovers from lunch were thrown out by the galley boy. ‘I’d never actually met him before, you know, though both our fathers have banked with him for years. But I expect you and he are well acquainted?’

  ‘He comes quite often to Ballantyre House. He and Papa are good friends.’

  Dalston gave a short laugh. ‘And having a banker for a friend is rather handy these days.’ He looked away. ‘Greedy beggars.’

  She started at his words, then saw that he was looking at the gulls squabbling over the pickings. He turned back with a bland, half-amused expression, and she blushed. ‘Have you visited us too?’ she asked, to cover her confusion. ‘I wouldn’t necessarily have known, you see.’

  ‘Lord yes! Pa’s been coming to you to fish and shoot for years. I came too, once or twice.’ His eyes teased her again. ‘I’m rather cut that you don’t remember.’

  Flirting, she decided, but found she did not mind. ‘If you had been there recently, I’m sure I would have done.’

  ‘That’s better. Much kinder.’

  She coloured again and turned her head away, wishing she did not feel quite so inept. Clementina flirted with Dalston with a careless grace, but Evelyn had had no chance to develop the art. Only James Douglas had ever teased her, and she had been a child then and delighted by it—

  And that, of course, had been quite different.

  ‘Actually I’ve been out of the country a good deal recently.’ He handed his empty glass to a passing crew member then turned to lean his forearms on the rail and looked out across the lake, his face more serious.

  ‘Yes, Clementina said.’

  ‘Did she? And what else has she said?’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘Has she warned you that I’m a Bad Man?’

  She looked back at him, unsure whether he was joking. ‘And are you?’

  ‘Depends on your viewpoint. But I bet she said something.’

  ‘Only that you got into scrapes, when you were younger. Is there more?’

  He grinned at her. ‘Let’s leave it at scrapes, shall we. I don’t consider myself to be a Bad Man, of course, but Pa does. And his cronies. Pa doesn’t know what to do with me, you see, so I travel. Second son and all that.’ He did not seem to expect a response and, after a moment, continued. ‘I like travelling and since he won’t let me get involved with running the estate there’s not much for me to do. He doesn’t like me hanging around in London either as I’m too expensive and I’m not army material and I’m certainly not cut out for the church, God forbid!’

  She laughed at his expression of horror. ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘If there was a war the army might have suited me but a peacetime army’s a dead bore. I’ll inherit a decent little property one day, all being well, and settle down there eventually, I suppose.’ But what about income from it? She thought about her chat with Clementina. The amount had not been established. ‘Having an older brother who’s a paragon doesn’t help either. Steady Freddy, with his plump little wife who brought him a very plump little estate of her own and then provided him with an heir, equally plump, I daresay, though I have yet to meet the Honourable Infant.’ His expression was moody now as he looked out across the lake. ‘First of many, I daresay, and it all leaves me rather surplus to requirements.’ A frown deepened between his eyes and there was a petulance around his mouth. ‘So I travel, you see. And I hunt.’

  She recognised a spoiled but neglected child, and felt a sudden empathy. ‘That hardly makes you a Bad Man.’

  He gave her an odd, unaccountable look then made a mocking bow. ‘You’re terribly kind.’

  She felt out of her depth again so said nothing.

  ‘And what about you, Miss Ballantyre? What do you like to do?’

  ‘I should like to travel too.’

  ‘Should you?’ He had moved closer to her on the rail.

  ‘It’s tiresome always being at home, with nothing much to do.’

  ‘My sentiments entirely.’ He smiled at her and she smiled back, and then, hearing a distant honking, she looked up to see a great double V of geese flying high above them, heading south. So many of them! Travellers too—

  When she looked down again she saw that Dalston was studying her. ‘Do you ever go to London?’ he asked.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘But you might?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Edinburgh, then?’

  ‘Sometimes. But I spend most of my time at home.’

  ‘Ballantyre House is such a lovely spot, the envy of
the Borders.’

  It was, of course. Everyone said so. The old peel-house tower at its core had evolved into a substantial gentleman’s residence, surrounded by lawns and borders, and these gave way to parkland with well-placed specimen trees and fine views down to the river. The parkland gave way to fields and woodland, and on the crags on the far side of the river was an ancient stand of Scots pine. Generations had moulded the house into this picturesque landscape and now it stood there against the gentle folds of a hill, settled and complacent, radiating an aura of serene entitlement. Had Rupert Dalston been calculating its worth?

  She gave a tight smile. ‘And it’s always the same—’

  ‘But isn’t that part of its charm? What we’ve been taught to cherish? Solid and unchanging ways.’ He paused, but she had nothing to say. ‘Actually it is a while since I was there. Must be what, four … no, five years since.’

  Five years—

  She looked back up at the geese which were now overhead and began counting them, rather desperately, knowing by some sort of intuition where his next words would lead. ‘Not since that ghastly business with the poacher and your father’s keeper.’ She swallowed, and looked aside, feeling a pulse starting to thud in her temple. ‘But you were just a child then, of course.’ She gave a slight nod but stayed silent and held on to the rail. ‘They never caught that lad, did they?’

  ‘No.’

  She made a play of catching her hair and twisting it back into order, and kept her face turned away from him.

  Not a word had been heard of James Douglas since that night; he might be dead for all she knew. ‘Such a kick in the teeth for your father, after taking the wretch in, and all— But that sort always revert to type, you know, no matter what’s done for them.’

  That sort.

  James Douglas was that sort. Dalston was only saying what everyone else had said, but she felt a spurt of anger. That sort – little better than vermin, and no better than the old poacher who had been shot. Shot dead. She felt the familiar wave of horror and gripped the rail tight, staring out across the lake. With relief she heard Mr Larsen call to them to join the others on the aft deck for tea.