Light & Dark by Margaret Thomson Davis

Author:Margaret Thomson Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845028053
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2014-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

30

Miss Viners said, ‘It is situated between the Pentland Hills and the Firth of Forth.’ They were making their first excursion from Malcolm’s house and it was one of the happiest days of Clementina’s life. Everything was beautiful and intensely interesting. Even Miss Viners looked more attractive. Instead of her usual schoolroom black, she was wearing a brown skirt and jacket and a brown lacquered hat. The brown was certainly the darkest shade possible and the cut of the clothes unfashionable, but the high-necked, stiffly-boned blouse was a soft shade of beige. For the first time Clementina noticed that Miss Viners’ eyes were not dull black but glossy brown.

Clementina was unaware of her own expensively-cut shorter skirt flouncing with petticoats, her neat jacket and white fur hat and muff. Her attention was caught by too many new and riveting sights around her. At times in her excitement she skipped alongside Miss Viners, her long hair swinging and bouncing over her shoulders. Until Miss Viners quelled her with a sharp reminder that she was a lady and ought to behave like one.

Miss Viners had been impressed with Heriot Row, its quiet genteel houses at the bottom of wide gardens and its exceptionally wide pavement. Clementina admired the New Town—the rare beauty of Charlotte Square, the handsome St Andrews Square and Queen Street, but it was the unexpected vistas which fascinated her most: how other streets fell away towards the Firth, for instance, and the illusion this gave that Edinburgh was hanging on the edge of the world. Some of these streets had statues showing sharp against the clouds like gods descending; it was equally intriguing to see Edinburgh citizens appearing—first hat, then head, then bended body, as if advancing out of a hidden sea. Clementina could imagine that away down on the Firth people in boats were looking up at her and Miss Viners apparently walking in mid-air. It was a most exhilarating sensation.

‘The New Town is made up of elegant parallelograms . . .’ Miss Viners prodded Clementina along. ‘Pay attention, Miss! You are here to learn, not to dream.’

A cold east wind was blowing, but brilliant gleams of sunshine every now and again highlighted the classical buildings as Clementina and her governess made their way towards the main thoroughfare of Princes Street. The street was on a ridge and Princes Street gardens fell away into a pleasant hollow which accentuated the colossal height of the Castle Rock. The sound of pipers in the gardens swirled up with the wind, adding to Clementina’s enchantment. Soon the Highlanders came marching into view to the beat of the drums and the skirl of the pipes. Then round the corner, magnificently wheeling, they took the hill by storm, tartans swaying and white gaiters flashing.

‘The Castle Rock,’ Miss Viners rapped out, ‘is an extinct volcano and an excellent place of defence for our ancestors. This rock would have run with blood more than once, I dare say.’

From the ramparts of the Castle the views were breathtaking.

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