Flora, 1940
The sun was slow to set in the days of high summer, seeming scarcely to dip below the western horizon an hour or so from midnight before it reappeared in the east in the early morning hours. In the evenings, when they’d been released from their duties, Flora, Alec and Ruaridh would take their trout rods and climb into the hills to fish. Their catch provided a welcome addition to the rations, both at the scrubbed pine table in the kitchen of Keeper’s Cottage and on the polished mahogany one in the dining room of Ardtuath House.
From the hills above Aultbea and Mellon Charles, they could glimpse the constant buzz of activity on Loch Ewe, where ships moved ponderously like a huge grey shoal and their tenders sped in between them like the insects that skated over the surface of the lochan where they fished. They preferred to turn their backs on the busyness of the naval manoeuvres, though, and watch the calm waters cupped within the folds of the hills, where white water lilies drifted among the reflections of the clouds, hiding brown trout beneath the broad pads of their leaves. The three of them would set down their packs beside the old bothy and then spread out, each finding their preferred spot on the bank of the lochan from which to cast. Little was said, apart from the occasional quiet comment when a fish was landed. The song of the skylarks and the plaintive cries of the curlews from the moor above them filled the summer evenings with their music.
On one such evening, Flora was just about to cast her last fly into the deeper corner of the little loch where the rushes grew tallest, when she was surprised by Corry, Sir Charles’s spaniel, who came bouncing through the starry sphagnum moss that grew thick on the hummocks of the hill surrounding the lochan.
‘Hello, boy.’ She bent down to stroke his silky ears and he wagged his whole body enthusiastically. ‘Where’s your master?’
A moment later the laird appeared, carrying his own fishing rod. ‘Aha, I see you lot got here before me. Have you caught all the good ones already?’ Sir Charles’s deep baritone reverberated in the evening air, silencing the larks. He strode across to where Flora stood, her catch laid out on the mossy bank. ‘Not a bad evening’s work, Miss Gordon. I see you’ve managed to beat the boys.’ Two of her three trout were larger than the single fish that Ruaridh and Alec had each caught.
She smiled and nodded. ‘Alec will bring those two back to the big house. They should make a nice supper for you all.’
Sir Charles scarcely acknowledged her remark, turning towards his son. ‘Pack your things away now and get on back to the house. Your mother is fretting because we have the Urquharts arriving tomorrow for the weekend. We’ve a day’s fishing planned for them and the Kingsley-Scotts invited to dinner afterwards. Take her those trout – she’ll be glad of them – and see what you can do to help. You know how short-handed we are these days. Although I certainly don’t intend to let standards slip, just because there’s a war on.’
At the mention of the Kingsley-Scotts, Flora stiffened slightly, shooting a quick glance at Alec. He hadn’t mentioned that they’d be there. She wondered whether Diana would be coming with her parents. She put her catch into the willow creel and handed it to Alec, not quite meeting his eye.
‘Here,’ he demurred, trying to give her back the three smaller fish, ‘you take these for your own supper.’
‘No,’ she said, firmly replacing them in the basket. ‘It sounds as if you’re going to need them if you’ve all those visitors coming.’
‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t know he’d invited the Kingsley-Scotts.’ He put a hand against Flora’s cheek, reassuring her, and stooped to kiss her.
‘You’d better get going, Alec.’ His father’s voice was sharp with impatience. ‘In fact, since you and your friends have been so kind as to do my work for me this evening, I think I’ll accompany you home. We can both give your mother a hand.’ He shouldered his rod and called Corry to heel. ‘Good evening, Ruaridh, Flora.’ He gave them a curt nod and she saw how cold his eyes were; his earlier joviality had evaporated. ‘Tell your father I’d like to speak to him tomorrow morning about the arrangements for the weekend.’
Alec hesitated, reluctant to leave, but his father snapped, ‘Come on, man, I haven’t got time to waste.’
Wordlessly, Ruaridh and Flora watched the two figures striding back down the hill. Then they gathered together their things, securing their hooks in the cork handles of their rods and pulling on the jackets they’d discarded earlier, before following more slowly in the footsteps of Alec and Sir Charles.