boil water. And when I walked in to ask if he wanted tea, there she was, sat in her slim blue dress with the hems all spread round her feet, smiling like a cat. And he said to me, ‘Oh, Moira, please could you fetch us tea, and if you have it, some of your delicious cloutie cake?’
So I closed the door on what I had just seen, herself sitting in there in the drawing room, and went off to the kitchen where I crashed about and set a tray, doing as much damage to the crockery as I could without breaking anything. I got the big polished wood tray and set it with a lace cloth and two cups and saucers and two little plates. On each one I put a slice of cloutie dumpling, one thick for him and one dainty slice for her. And then I leaned over the dainty slice and spat on it. Not so much that you would notice, but still it was a terrible thing to do. I watched myself spread the butter on top and boil the water for the tea and pour it in the silver teapot and set it on the tray, and then I picked it up.
It was a bad thing I was doing, but it soothed the raging in my breast and I felt a great calm, of something assuaged, as I carried the tray in and set it down on the little table. I poured out the tea slowly and then handed them each their slice and watched as she put it to her mouth.
‘Moira,’ said the Reverend, making me jump, ‘Katriona wishes to learn Gaelic, and she has asked me to be her teacher. Would you recommend me now?’ He turned to her. ‘You see, I am teaching my maid to read,’ he said, without a thought for how I might feel about her knowing how I was too ignorant to read.
I mumbled something in Gaelic, that I knew even the Reverend would not comprehend, and they both stared at me. Then she laughed.
‘Oh, but I shall soon understand what everyone is saying here,’ she trilled. ‘You see, Alexander, that is why I must learn to speak the native tongue. All the people say to me when I address them is, “No English, lady; no English, lady.” It is most vexing. I thought more people here would know English.’
The Reverend said nothing, but he knew as well as I did that everyone has at least some English, and the young ones who have been to the new board school have very good English. It is simply that the people here do not want to speak to anyone from the house of Marstone.
I went back to my kitchen exhausted, repentant already of the thing I had just done, but also glad of it: a little way towards our settling of accounts. And I thought of all I had vowed to do, and all the miles between here and the castle of Lord Marstone, and with me with no pony and trap, but must get there in my pinching boots or bare feet. Then there were the reasons I must give so they would let me in, and so much to be planned before I could go in and settle my accounts with himself.
At Avenbuidhe Castle, they only use maids from Glasgow, who come for a year or so, and then go away from the homesickness. Girls from the islands are never taken on, being too reeking of peat smoke and lisping with Gaelic. How could I then get myself a place there to work and find my opportunity? Must I go by night and creep in a window? And as for the knife, which one would I take? It would leave Alexander a knife short for the cooking. And then who was to care for him after I was gone?
I was so very tired, so very empty and exhausted. I went back in to collect the tea things in a stupor, and when she told me my cake was very good, I felt nothing, even with all my plans going around my mind.
‘So,’ she was saying to the Reverend, ‘will you write down your lovely seal story for me? It sounds so intriguing. How I wish we had such a lovely legend in my family. I would love to be descended from a Selkie.’
And after that, I have to confess, I did smash a china cup in the kitchen. And it did happen to be the one she had been drinking from. That she should waltz into the house, and in five minutes get my Reverend to give up his great secret,