News of the Dead by James Robertson

Author:James Robertson [Robertson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241986639
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Saturday, 26th August 1809

Another week has passed. I had lost all interest in making these entries but the last two days have restored it. The weather turned exceptionally warm last Monday and it seems that sultry air does not agree with the redoubtable Baroness. She is mistress of all things but close heat, which caused her to retreat to her chamber with a bad head. For three days at dinner we were just three. The Baron was quite morose without her. Jessie on the other hand was lively, keen to cheer her father and to please me. She had a glass of wine more than she might have in front of her mother and was more relaxed and personable than at any time since I came here. She also once or twice slyly addressed me as ‘Charles’ on Monday, and again on Tuesday, and by Wednesday Glen Conach had unconsciously caught the habit from her. I felt it would be churlish not to respond in like manner (to Jessie, not to her father!) and by Thursday when there was a thunderstorm and the Baroness re-emerged, much restored, we were all a happy family. She perceived it at once and saw that it could not be reversed without warfare, so let it be, and in fact it has made us all more easy with one another and perhaps herself less fearful that I will seduce her daughter, which I have no intention of doing.

Jessie did leave off her other tasks and come much more about me during these days. She told me another Conach tale that she said she had got from Elspeth’s granny. She made me show her some of my translation, and when I asked her if she had read right to the end of the Book she said she had.

‘Did you ever hear from Elspeth’s granny about what Conach did to himself?’ I asked.

‘I did,’ she said. ‘That’s a tale many ken but few like to tell. Granny Ally whispered it to me once as if it was a secret.’

‘But you knew of it before you read the Book?’

‘Aye, but not in all its horrible detail. Please dinna speak about it again, Charles, it makes me feel faint just to think on it.’

So I left that alone, but she is better acquainted with the Latin than she let on at first. I wrote earlier in these pages that she was cunning and she is. She has stopped being in love with me and treats me now like a kind of brother. This is a relief and indeed I grow to like her much more. On Thursday evening she sang several songs very well and her playing of the spinet was much better. The songs were again mainly Jacobite ones.

I don’t know if these songs set off something in her father’s head but at breakfast yesterday, which dawned fresh and clear after the rain, he waited until we were alone and said to me, ‘Charles, leave your studies for a day, and let us take a jaunt together.

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