My maiden voyage alone in my mother’s car was actually so banal it is almost not worth mentioning. I crept so very carefully down the drive I never even dared shift out of low. Nor did I gather much speed on the Perth Road heading for Brig O’Fearn village. The lane to Inverfearnie Island comes off the main road and goes past Inchfort Field on its way to the library, and I passed Ellen McEwen on her way to the Boatman’s Well, laden with one of the big milk cans the McEwens use to fetch water. She had to stand pressed up against the hedge to let me pass, her almost-always hostile stare full of disbelief.
I felt triumphant, but the lane was so narrow there I didn’t dare let go of the driving wheel to wave. I drove all the way down to Inverfearnie Island so I could turn around in the wide gravel drive in front of the library. I wasn’t sure if Mary saw me but I was still so mad at her that I didn’t care.
When I parked by the field gate at Inchfort and climbed out of the car, Pinkie the dog came galloping to greet me.
‘My own girl!’ I cooed as she showered me with kisses.
Mrs McEwen was out in front of their big camp tent, washing breakfast cups and plates in a white enamel tin tub. The baby – which I knew now to be Ellen and Euan’s very junior adopted sister, the child of a cousin who’d died giving birth to her – was chortling away in a little willow basket nearby.
‘I didn’t bring you a present last time,’ I said. ‘So I did this time.’ I’d cut an armful of roses for Mrs McEwen, the reddest reds and darkest pinks I could find. Knowing that we couldn’t take them with us made us rather free with the cut flowers.
‘The bonny things!’ Jean McEwen shook the water from her hands and buried her nose in the velvety, scented blossom. ‘What beauties! Are these out of Lady Strathfearn’s garden? Let me get the tea on – you’ll need a cup of tea after your ride in the motor car. We can put these in to soak when Ellen gets back – she’s just fetching another can of water. Euan’s away to the Big House.’
‘Oh! I wanted to give him a ride and spare him the long walk! Didn’t Ellen tell you I was coming?’
I felt pretty sure she hadn’t really believed I’d manage it.
‘It’s nae bother for Euan this morning – he rode in the cart with his uncle Hamish who’s away to Perth peddling tin. We had a time getting the dog to stay behind, but it’s no place for her among those dredgers! How kind of you to think on Euan. We’ve told him to meet you by the Strathfearn garages at day’s end. No doubt he’d be glad of a lift home by then, and if you stop here the now you’ll catch our Nell when she comes back.’
Another, separate plan hatched itself beautifully in my brain. Meanly, it didn’t include Jamie. Naughtily, it did include my mother’s car.
‘Maybe Ellen would like to go for a drive?’
‘I should think she’ll like that very much!’
Shaness, Julie, you are a devious wee temptress.
Of course she wanted to go for a drive. Who can resist a cherry-red two-seater open-top sports car?
I was waiting for Ellen at the gate when she got back with the water. I was sitting in the car, ready to go.
‘I went to a lot of bother to come out here for Euan this morning,’ I said. ‘You might have told him to wait.’
Her stony eyes glinted. ‘Oh, aye?’ she responded noncommittally.
‘Well, as I’m here anyway, you may as well come for a ride instead.’
I could see she was ridiculously excited, and a little scared. I don’t think Ellen McEwen realises how obvious all her emotions are.
‘You can do the shifting, if you like,’ I said. ‘I’ll put the clutch in and tell you when to move the stick.’
‘You’re a radge dilly. Horn moich.’
‘I know what that means, you know.’
‘Oh, aye?’ she repeated.
‘A pure mad girl. So I am! Do you want to do the gears or not?’
‘Let me just give Mammy this can. Wait for me.’
It was a good lesson for both of us: it made me have to think even harder about getting the timing of clutch and stick right. I let her do it all the way out to the main road, slowing down and speeding up on purpose so she could practise.
Then I took over to drive carefully through Brig O’Fearn village and back to the gate lodge of Strathfearn House, and that was all I had permission to do. But …
… But Mother was in Edinburgh and I had officially finished being convalescent and I was still a little jealous of all the time that Jamie had spent with Ellen and I hadn’t, and –
Suddenly all the sorrow and uncertainty that entwined our lives with Strathfearn dropped away from us both. We were nothing more than two lucky girls on a jolly holiday in a motor car.
I swung around neatly in the lodge entrance to the driveway and headed back towards Brig O’Fearn.
‘Where are you going?’ Ellen cried.
‘Over Pitbroomie Hill to Glenmoredun Castle!’
It is only a little detour from Brig O’Fearn, only the next road over.
‘Madwoman!’ Ellen accused approvingly.
‘I want to see what the moor looks like. They’re shooting there soon. There must be grouse about – bet the car will scare the birds!’
‘Do they need beaters for the shoot? Or loaders? Our men used to work the Opening Day shoot for Strathfearn.’
‘I’ll ask Mother.’
It occurred to me that Ellen and I must have had rather different views of Opening Day. Mine had always been: This frenzied killing of birds interrupts my birthday but can be rather fun. But to Ellen, it was just work.
And she added schemingly, but without the accusatory tone I’d come to expect from her, ‘If Jamie’s shooting, Euan could load for him. He’s fast.’
Feeling a bit awkward now, but not wanting to admit it, I said cheerfully, ‘I’ll volunteer him!’
Then we came to Brig O’Fearn and I stopped talking so I could concentrate on driving carefully through the village again. But I had the hang of this now. The road to Glenmoredun Castle went haring away to the south, twisting around Pitbroomie Hill as though it couldn’t decide which direction it wanted to go, but I followed it anyway, picking up speed.
‘I don’t believe you know where you’re going,’ Ellen said.
‘Oh pish, there isn’t any other road! How could I possibly get lost here?’ (It is true I am hopeless at directions. I came down the wrong side of the mountain on that skiing holiday and had to be brought back to the chalet by a policeman. But the Pitbroomie Moor was familiar. Part of it used to belong to Strathfearn.)
We were between stone walls and hedges on the way up, thorn and bramble, and couldn’t see where we were in relation to anything else. Then over cattle bars and there were no more walls. The thorn turned to gorse, still brilliant here and there with yellow blossom and heavy with bees.
The pavement disappeared suddenly and we were on gravel just as the gradient increased dramatically. I had to slow down but I forgot to shift out of high gear and, horror, three quarters of the way up, the Magnette stalled with a tremendous lurch.
Ellen made a little shrieking sound like ‘Eep!’
I tried to start the motor again and found myself in neutral, slowly bumping backward down the steep hillside and gathering speed. I yanked on the handbrake and both of us nearly went flying out of the open car like a pair of jack-in-the-boxes.
‘God pity us.’
I could hardly blame Ellen for that.
We paused quietly in the middle of the track, catching our breath in safe and sudden stillness.