Fiona smiled. “Hello.”
“You face in the wrong direction, lady, you stare at the moon, ever changing,” intoned the little girl in a solemn voice.
Perplexed, Fiona caught at her small, grubby hand and clasped it in her own. “I understand you not, hinny.”
“You look but you do not see. Turn about, lady, turn about.”
From across the table Janet Reid gave another jolly laugh—reminding Fiona irritably of a braying donkey—and cried:
“We have a wee poetess among us! How charming! How inscrutable!”
The girl freed her hand from Fiona’s, and slowly twisted toward Janet. After an interval of silent observation, she said, “You leap, but should not. You go, but you ought not.”
Janet only laughed again, and Alasdair Penhallow said, “Away with you, little Sheila, for you disturb my guests. Return to your place at your table, and you’ll see that ices are shortly to be served.”
Suddenly Sheila looked like every other child who craves dessert. “Oh, laird, ’tis my very favorite,” she exclaimed, and hurried away at once.
“Ices,” Wynda Ramsay informed Fiona in a knowledgeable tone, “are the most fashionable goormandooze in London. The trez charmeent Prince Regent is said to be particularly fond of pistachio ice.”
“I see,” said Fiona politely (although in fact she could not have cared less), then looked at her pretty, gold-rimmed plate as if seeing it for the first time. She had to admit—in another surprise—that dinner had been a most elegant experience, quite surpassing even the most formal meals served at home, where one could count on mutton being served every day: boiled, broiled, braised, baked, fried, stewed, and, occasionally, fricasseed. She had enjoyed every bite of her cold pheasant pie, and the poulets aux champignons, garnished with a delicate watercress sauce, also were delicious. Perhaps she could get the recipe from the cook. Something else to do tomorrow. She added it to her mental list.
When at last dinner was over, the annoyingly jocund old man with the preposterous beard, Duff MacDermott, uncle to Alasdair Penhallow and apparently in charge of herding them around like farm animals, announced that each of the young ladies was to have time to privately converse with the laird—with himself and at least one chaperone, of course, at a discreet remove.
“Oh! A teet-à-teet! C’est amoosing!” gaily said Wynda Ramsay, and Mairi MacIntyre asked, in her soft, sweet voice, if both her parents might sit by as chaperones, and could she bring along darling Pug?
“As you wish, my dear,” Duff MacDermott answered jovially. He shook the crumbs from his beard and glanced speculatively around the high table. “Miss Fiona, may I escort you, the laird, and Miss Isobel to the Great Drawing-room?”
Yes, get the least likely candidate over with first, thought Fiona cynically, and, placing her linen napkin next to her plate, stood up without haste. She resisted the temptation to paraphrase the famous line from Macbeth and say, Lay on, MacDermott, and merely nodded. As their little group—preceded by servants bearing candelabra—made their way along a long gallery whose walls were hung with dozens and dozens of portraits, Fiona glanced left and right at them, aware, to her chagrin, that she and Cousin Isobel surely made a comically odd pair: herself so tall and thin, Isobel so short and plump. Nor did Isobel improve things by the manner in which she was discreetly, but continually, scratching at her flea-bites which, by the look of things, covered her from head to toe.
When at length their party entered the drawing-room Fiona had to suppress a gasp of further astonishment: never in her life had she seen such an elegant, such an exquisite chamber, from the handsome array of sofas, chairs, and tables, all arranged so as to encourage easy conversation among small groups, to the luxurious tasseled window-hangings of dark green velvet and the many works of art, both paintings and sculptures, in sizes large and small, that were placed everywhere about to best advantage.
Briefly she envisioned the saloon at home that served as their drawing-room—darkly wainscoted, low-ceilinged, incurably draughty, roastingly hot when one sat near the fire, and frigidly cold when one stepped ten paces back—and she couldn’t help but contrast it unfavorably to this warm, gracious, light-filled room.
And yet . . . and yet there was something about it which baffled her, though she could not, at the moment, specify what exactly it was.
“You stare, Miss Fiona, and why not?” said Duff MacDermott. “Here you see the hand of the laird’s mother—my sister, God rest her soul. According to common report, it was his father—my brother-in-law, may he also rest in peace—who undertook the renovations you’ll see everywhere, but it was really Gormelia. Never happier than when she was having old curtains ripped down and new ones put up, and fancy new dishes brought in by the hundreds!” He chuckled, which made his beard ripple in an undeniably fascinating way. “She’s probably redecorating heaven as we speak, and telling Saint Peter he needs a modish new desk at the Pearly Gates! I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “she did so much here in the castle, during her day, there’ll be little for the laird’s new wife to do, beyond producing offspring, of course.”