The Little Pretender

2-2

Such frugality was fitting, she thought, for a girl who was supposed to have been brought up by an impoverished nurse. All the same, she was feminine enough to wish that she could have arrived at Skaig Castle beautifully and fashionably garbed in gowns which would have given her courage and been a fitting background to her pretension to ducal lineage. She thought sadly of some of the lovely things she had owned before her guardian died, not that her gowns and manteaux had been exceptionally expensive, but she had been able to dress as befitted the cherished ward of a gentleman.

Her guardian had denied her little and she always understood that some of the money on which they lived was her own. James Drummond’s money was principally an allowance paid by his relatives which Iona was well aware would cease at his death. But he had some capital in France and with her own dowry she would certainly not be left penniless.

But when eventually he did die, things were very different. Iona found then that he had lent his own small capital, and hers, to one of his relations who had been banished in ’45. It had not been a tremendous sum – in fact the gentleman who received it had thought it so negligible that he spent it both speedily and lavishly in keeping up his position at the French Court. But it was all that stood between Iona and absolute penury. James Drummond had trusted the exile and had believed his repeated assurances that sooner or later the money would be returned. It was left to Iona to find on her guardian’s death that the money was lost beyond recall.

James had been dead only a few days when his debtor was arrested and thrown into prison because he could not pay the thousands of francs he owed the tradesmen. Iona had known then what it was to have no security, to be alone in the world without money, without a home or even a name.

For perhaps the first time in her life she had felt humiliated and ashamed of being herself. When she had been old enough to understand, her guardian had told her that she had been brought into his keeping when she was but a few months odd.

“I gave the person who brought you my most solemn oath,” he told her, “that I would never reveal to you or anyone else who you are. You were christened Iona because you were born on the small lovely Island of that name which lies on the west coast of Scotland. That is all I can tell you. But I can promise you one thing, my dear – you need not be ashamed of the blood which runs through your veins, and you need never be anything but proud of your nationality which is Scottish.”

James Drummond sighed, then added,

“I have tried to make a home for you, Iona, if I have failed it is not for the want of loving you.”

Was it surprising then that whenever the subject had arisen Iona had assured her guardian that she loved him better than anyone else, and that she wanted no other home? They had laughed together when, finding a surname essential, she had chosen to call herself “Ward”, because she was his ward and he was her guardian.

“Iona Ward!” she dimpled. “Tis a pretty name and one day perhaps I will make you proud of it.”

But when their home was sold and the sale of the furniture and the pictures brought Iona only enough to pay for a granite headstone over James Drummond’s grave, she wept bitter tears because she had nothing left – not even the knowledge of her own identity.

Who was she? Where had she come from? And where should she go?

Eventually she found a job in a milliner’s shop where once she had bought her bonnets, and had rented a tiny attic in a respectable lodging house nearby. She had never realized until then how few friends her guardian had made in France.

He had not been a young man when in ’15 he took an oath of allegiance to the Chevalier de St. George. Banished from Scotland a few months later, James Drummond had found it hard to start life anew in a strange country. He had hated his life in Paris and had been too homesick even to be particularly sociable with the other exiles. Occasionally he paid his respects to his exiled King, occasionally he spent an evening with some other Scotsmen, passing the hours making plans which they knew in their hearts, even while they agreed over them, were doomed never to be anything but dreams born of wine and tobacco smoke.

The years passed, James Drummond’s friends thinned out as they died or were pardoned and returned home to Scotland. He was an old man when Prince Charles set sail in ’45 on his gallant bid for power. When the fugitives and exiles of that ill-fated enterprise came flooding into France, James Drummond would not bestir himself to make their acquaintance.

With the selfishness and egotism of one who has nearly reached the end of his life he was complacently content with the companionship of his young ward, and it never entered his mind that she might need friends of her own age. Iona never complained, and having never associated with young people, did not miss them. But when her guardian died, she was appalled by the barren desolation of her own loneliness.

Now, as she dressed in the austere and ugly little hotel bedroom, she wondered why she should be afraid. Nothing in Scotland, she thought, could be worse than what she had experienced in the last two years in Paris after James Drummond’s death.

She was engaged in adjusting her travelling hood over her hair when there came a knock on the door. She bade whomever it might be “enter” and a maid came into the room, bringing a cup of chocolate that she set down on the table.

“Will ye be wantin’ breakfast afore ye leave?” the girl asked.

She was a skinny creature with big red hands and large, clumsy feet.

“No, thank you,” Iona replied.

“The coach will be in the yard at a quarter to seven, if ye be wantin’ a guid seat,” the girl volunteered.

Iona was grateful for the information and when the maid had left the room, she picked up the chocolate and began to sip it. It was badly made and tepid, but it was all Iona had ordered. Her guardian had always eaten what he called “a proper breakfast”, but Iona, reared in France, had a native taste for hot rolls, coffee or chocolate, and could not contemplate anything more substantial.

She finished the chocolate and was gathering together her small pieces of luggage when suddenly she dropped everything and stood still in utter horror, the blood receding from her face. She had remembered something almost unbearably disturbing. While she and Hector were travelling from Paris to the coast, she had given him for safety the miniature and the pearl bracelet, which were to establish her identity when she reached Skaig Castle.

Colonel Brett had also written out an account of the confession Father MacDonald had heard from Jeannie MacLeod, with the alterations and additions on which they had agreed. He had not, of course, been able to sign it with Father MacDonald’s name – instead he had added a fictitious one.

“They will make investigations, Iona,” the Colonel warned her, “but before anyone can have returned from France with the information, you will, pray God, have learned all we want to know and have made good your escape.”

The letter had been bulky and the miniature and bangle so precious that Iona had been afraid of losing them or having them stolen from her. She had given them to Hector for safekeeping, and now with a kind of sick horror she remembered that he had not returned them to her. They had both been so excited at seeing Scotland, and he had talked so much of the evening he was going to have with his friends that they had left their farewells until the last hurried moment.

“I shall drink whisky tonight, Iona,” Hector had said as the ship neared the quayside. “That’s real drink, and it will be a welcome change from the gallons of sickly wines I’ve quaffed these last five years. Doubtless I shall be gloriously drunk. If you hear me come singing to bed, remember you have no acquaintance with such a vulgar, roistering fellow.”

Iona had assured him laughingly she would have no desire to claim acquaintance with him under such circumstances, and then their smiles had faded and they had looked at each other, their faces suddenly serious.

“God keep you!” Hector MacGregor said quietly, his eyes on Iona’s shadowed face. “I shall be waiting to welcome you in France on your return.”

He raised her fingers to his lips. Iona felt an almost insane desire to cling to him, to ask him to come with her and to tell him that she was afraid to go on alone. As if he sensed what she was feeling, he suddenly put his arms round her and drew her close to him. For one moment she leant her head against his shoulder and shut her eyes. Here was security and protection. For a moment Iona told herself that everything else in the world was unimportant. Then Hector let her go and his face was turned towards the shore.

“I will go first,” he said in a low voice. “We must not be seen together.”

With an intolerable sense of loss Iona watched him leap from the deck on to the stone quay. Hector was her first playmate, her first friend of her own age and class. He had teased her and bullied her and looked after her during the journey as if she were the most precious person in the whole world. They had argued together, quarrelled a little and laughed for no better reason than that they were young and light-hearted. Iona knew now that the voyage from France had been for her a time of extraordinary happiness – but it was over.

If Scotland was full of unknown fears for her, it was home for Hector and he walked away from the ship with his head held high and whistling a gay tune which Iona heard long after he was out of sight.

It was only now that she remembered that he had stridden away from her with her most precious possessions still in his keeping. Agitatedly she looked round the room. Should she write a note and send it to his bedroom? That would be to invite comment amongst the servants, and besides, there was so little time.

It was nearly a quarter to seven and the coach would be waiting. Whatever happened she must get a seat. There was only one thing to do. Risky though it might be, she must go to Hector’s bedchamber.

The hotel was small and the guest rooms were all on one floor. Coming up to bed, Iona had seen a porter ahead of her with Hector’s trunk on his shoulder. He had entered a room at the far end of the passage.

Quietly she opened her door. There was no one in sight. Picking up the voluminous folds of her skirts so that she could move quickly, she ran across the landing and down the passage. She reached Hector’s room and knocked on the door. There was no, answer.

Apprehensively she wondered if, after all, he had not returned to the hotel the night before. Perhaps his friends had persuaded him to stay with them, although more than once he said it was unfair for any man with a price on his head to shelter under a friendly roof, for should the English start to hunt for him, the consequences for those with whom he stayed would be serious.

Iona knocked again, but there was still no answer. Desperate and almost faint with anxiety she lifted the latch of the door. It was not locked and peeping in she saw with a sense of utter relief that Hector was lying on the bed. He was snoring with his mouth open and Iona guessed that his friends had been as hospitable as he had anticipated. She only hoped the whisky had not been too potent.