Death at Glamis Castle (10 page)

“At times, he apparently seemed almost normal, whilst at other times . . .” Kirk-Smythe pursed his lips. “Apparently he suffers from intermittent delusions of some sort, rather serious, I take it. Duff was vague, but the coroner, Dr. Henry Ogilvy, is a Strathmore family confidante and has treated the Prince from time to time. His name is on your list. He will no doubt be able to give you better information.”

“Ah, the coroner,” Charles said, feeling on more familiar ground. “Has he held the inquest into Hilda MacDonald's murder?”

“It's been called for this afternoon, but he could probably be persuaded to postpone it, if you think best. The body is in his care. At my request, the constable showed me the murder scene on the path to the village. Couldn't make much of it, but I posted a guard with orders that it not be disturbed.” He paused. “I'm afraid that the constable—a youngish fellow—may be a bit of a problem. Glamis is his territory, and he doesn't like interference.”

“I don't suppose one can blame him for that. Anything else?”

Kirk-Smythe turned up his collar against a spit of rain. “I haven't inspected the Prince's quarters in the castle. I locked the rooms, Charles, thinking to leave that to you.”

Charles hunched his shoulders. “Well, then,” he said, “that seems like the place to begin.” He looked up at the gray, blowing clouds. “At least it will take us indoors, out of the weather. Let's get on with it, shall we?”

Sir Walter Scott on a visit to Glamis Castle, 1793

 

 

 

 

Flora took up a paraffin lamp from a hallway table and lit it. Kate's bags were being taken upstairs, and she was about to be given her promised tour of the castle.

“If ye'll come this way, m'lady,” Flora said in a low voice, “I'll show ye the aulder parts o' the castle first.”

Picking up her skirts, Kate followed the young woman down the circular stone staircase into the depths of the Great Tower, which had been built, according to Flora, between 1435 and 1459. A moment later, Flora took a key off a peg set high in the wall and opened a heavy wooden door, stepping aside to let Kate enter.

They were standing just inside the crypt, a stone-walled, vaulted room said to be the place where Macbeth treacherously slew King Duncan. Flora pointed out, however, that the story of Duncan's murder could scarcely be true, since he had actually died in 1040, some four hundred years before even the oldest part of the castle was begun.

But Flora's matter-of-fact recital took away none of the room's sinister, shadowy mystery. Kate shivered as she looked around, imagining the echo of tramping feet and angry shouts, the clang of swords, the final despairing cry.

“Ghosts,” she whispered, thinking that this was exactly the place Beryl Bardwell had been looking for.

“Aye,” Flora said in a low, uneasy voice. “There be many restless spirits who walk o' nights in this place.” She bit her lip and might have said more, but seemed to think better of it.

Kate caught the flicker of a shadow out of the corner of her eye and turned. “This must be where the Monster of Glamis was imprisoned,” she said eagerly. “Lord Halifax told me that when he visited the castle, he heard that someone had been shut up in a secret room just off the crypt, within the wall itself. He said—”

“Lord Strathmore has forbidden us tae say awt about the matter,” Flora interrupted. She raised her lamp and went toward the door.

Kate wanted to ask her to wait so she could explore the crypt more thoroughly, but since she did not want to be left in the dark, she followed obediently.

Once on the stairway again, the key safely on its peg, Flora seemed easier. “There be ghosts aplenty in th' castle, if ghosts're what ye've coom seeking.” Her voice lightened. “Ye might look out for th' Gray Lady who cooms intae the chapel tae say her prayers. Or the little servant boy who sits on th' bench outside one of th' bedrooms. Or Earl Beardie, who gambles and carouses with th' devil in one of the towers, makin' no end o' racket. Many say they've heard him, rantin' an' ravin'.” She smiled with a dry irony. “Oh, there be a great plenty o' ghosts here at Glamis.”

“Yes, of course,” Kate murmured, feeling that she had inadvertently stumbled upon a most interesting subject and making a mental note to dig a little deeper into the mystery of the crypt and the Monster of Glamis, about whom the servants were forbidden to speak. But now they were going up the stairs again to a grand dining room sumptuously decorated with a splendid plaster ceiling, an elaborate fireplace with a tall oak armorial mantel, and impressive full-length portraits of various members of the Strathmore family—a dining room fit for royalty, certainly. From the dining room, they went to the vaulted drawing room, the former Great Hall where Mary, Queen of Scots held court during her visit in August 1562. Kate drew in her breath, imagining the tragic Queen, now over three hundred years dead, sitting with her ladies-in-waiting in royal splendor in this very room. Everywhere she turned at Glamis, some chapter of its ancient story was opened up, as if the castle were a book filled with six hundred years of human history—nearly a thousand, if one turned all the way back to the tale of King Duncan and the faithless Thane of Glamis. Her fingers itched for her notebook and camera, to record some of these fascinating scenes.

At last, they stopped at the open door to a bedroom, where, Flora told her, the young Sir Walter Scott had spent an uneasy night in 1793, disturbed by the unhappy spirit of the defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie. The bed was still covered with the Scott tartan, Flora pointed out, adding that Scottish visitors to Glamis always slept beneath their own plaid.

“Sir Walter used part o' the story o' Glamis in his novel
The Antiquary,
” she added. “He gave it th' name o' Glenallan House.”

Kate smiled, looking around the small room and reflecting happily that Glamis was the ideal setting for a book—Beryl's
next
book. Lady Macbeth might be the main character, perhaps. Or Mary, Queen of Scots. Or—

“Didn't Bonnie Prince Charlie also visit Glamis?” she asked excitedly. Now,
that
would be a marvelous story, full of romance, mystery, and bloody intrigue. The tale of the Young Pretender to the throne of England, forced to hide out in the Highlands, then fleeing for his life to the islands off the west coast of Scotland.

“The Bonnie Prince slept here for sev'ral nights after the battle at Falkirk,” Flora replied, “in January of 1746. But his stay was a great secret, for his cause was already lost, y'see. Lord Thomas Strathmore, his host, feared that if 'twere known he had harbored the Prince, the English'd seize the estate. Shortly after,” she added, “Lord Strathmore was forced to accommodate the e'il Duke o' Cumberland, who was hot on the trail of Prince Charlie, burning and looting and plundering.”

Kate listened with interest, for this was a chapter in the history of Scotland that had always fascinated her. Bonnie Prince Charlie was one of the most famous of Scottish heroes, although he was not a true Scot at all but an Englishman born in exile, into the Stuart line. Prince Charlie's Catholic grandfather, James II, who ruled England from 1685 to 1689, had been deposed by William of Orange, a Dutch Protestant who aimed to make the country proof against Popery. Charlie's father, James III (often called the Old Pretender), came to Scotland in 1715 in an unsuccessful effort to regain the English throne. That was what came to be called the First Jacobite Rebellion. Prince Charlie—the Young Pretender—was born after his father's flight to France, and in 1745 made another bid to recover the throne for the Stuarts, the brutal campaign of the Forty-five, the Last Jacobite Rebellion. When the charismatic young leader raised his father's Stuart standard at Glenfinnan in August of 1745, the Catholic clans rallied to him. Within the month, he held control of nearly all of Scotland and began to move south into England, defeating the troops of George II at several points along the way.

By January, the Prince had reached Derby, 127 miles from London, but the promised French support did not materialize, and the English Catholics, fearing reprisals, failed to join the rebellion. It was clear that the Stuart cause was lost, and Charlie and his men turned back northward. Their ragged retreat became a rout after the Battle of Culloden, the bloodiest battle in Scottish history. By April 1746, the Prince, who had fired the imagination and raised the hopes of so many, was a hunted fugitive with thirty thousand English pounds on his head. While the English general, Lord Cumberland (the Bloody Duke, he was called), leveled reprisals against the Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie spent the next five months hiding in the Highlands. At last, disguised as the maid of a loyal Scotswoman, he escaped to the Isle of Skye and thence to France.

“There's so much history in this place,” Kate said softly. “So many stories in these stones.” She added, in a lighter tone, “You know, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to meet Prince Charlie's ghost tonight.”

Flora's luminous gray eyes rested on her. Kate saw that they were filled with sadness, and that there were lines of strain around her mouth. She put out her hand to ask if there was some trouble, but the young woman seemed to pull away, and Kate dropped her hand.

Several staircases and passageways later, Kate found herself installed in a spacious suite of guest rooms: a large bedroom, a sitting room, and even a modern bathroom, all decorated in a cheerful yellow. The diamond-paned casements looked out onto a pretty garden, beyond which Kate could see the wagon into which the baggage of Lady Glamis had been loaded. Lady Glamis herself was being handed into a waiting carriage. As Kate watched, another woman—the nanny, probably—appeared with little Elizabeth, the antic Mickie, and two older children. They got into the carriage, and a moment later, were gone.

Taking off her hat and gloves, Kate went to put them on the bed, noticing that the bags had arrived and were sitting beside the door, along with the large wooden box that contained her portable darkroom equipment. As she turned, she saw Flora standing at the other window, a wrenching sadness on her face and tears pooling in her gray eyes.

“Why, whatever is the matter, my dear?” Kate exclaimed. And then, belatedly grasping the significance of the black ribbon in the young woman's hair, added, “You're in mourning, aren't you, Flora?”

Flora nodded, making an effort to compose herself. But when Kate stepped forward and took her in her arms, she gave in and began to weep. At last, she stepped back, scrubbing the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Please forgive me, m'lady. I shouldn't hae distressed ye.”

“I'm only distressed for your sake,” Kate said, taking her hand and leading her to a sofa, then sitting beside her. She took out a handkerchief and handed it to Flora. “You've lost someone dear to you?”

“My mother, Hilda MacDonald,” Flora whispered. “I found her on Monday mornin', on th' path tae th' village. Ye can almost see the spot frae the window.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry!” Kate exclaimed. She was suddenly seized by a guilty thought. “But surely the Strathmores could have spared you for a few days. If you've been pressed into service because Lord Sheridan and I have come, I shall be glad to tell Simpson that we can look after ourselves. We are accustomed to traveling without servants.” This was very true, for Kate could not accustom herself to being dressed and undressed as if she had no strength of her own, and she wore her hair simply enough that she did not require someone to manage it.

“Nae, truly, m'lady,” Flora replied, beginning to recover herself. “I could hae had th' time, had I asked. But I prefer tae be here, at work. I need tae be doin' ordin'ry things, so I willna hae time tae think aboot it.” She swallowed. “But I fear I mun be absent this afternoon, tae attend th' coroner's inquest. My mother was . . . she was murdered, y'see.”

“Murdered!” Kate took the young woman's cold hands in her own. “Oh, how dreadful, Flora! Have the police apprehended the killer?”

Flora shook her head dumbly, her mouth trembling. “Nae,” she whispered.

Feeling a deep pity, Kate squeezed her hands and let them go. “Perhaps you'd feel better if you talked about it.”

“There's nowt tae say.” Flora dropped her head. “Mother and me, we live in Glamis Village. Sometimes she stayed here all th' night, though, so I didn't worry o'ermuch when she didn't coom home on th' Sunday evenin'. I found her th' next mornin,' on my way tae the castle, dead. It was . . . a dreadful sight tae see.”