The Chevalier by Jacqueline Seewald Page B

would indeed marry her cousin if he wanted her so that her mother could feel at peace.
    Her first sight of the MacCarnan domain was breathtaking but intimidating. A river flowed smooth and tranquil then fell steeply over a waterfall, the water of the falls looking like poured buttermilk. The glen in which the MacCarnan lived was wild country, full of rocks and hilly land, of thorns and heather. There were also pastures where scrawny cattle grazed, but for the most part, the farmland looked unproductive. She reminded herself that all able-bodied men had gone off to fight for Prince Charles.
    They passed the thatched roofs of the crofters’ cottages and she saw painfully thin children playing barefoot in tattered clothing. They rode on upland to what was a tumbledown castle. Adjoining the castle was a relatively large house with an indifferently maintained park.
    “We’re home at last,” her mother said with an air of finality. “This is Castle MacCarnan, home of the Earls of Glencarnan for four centuries.” Madeline took a deep breath and silently prayed that her Maman was right about what the Highlands would be like – for at the moment, she had her doubts. To her, this seemed like nothing more than an untamed, gloomy wilderness, uncivilized and totally foreign to her sensibilities, a far cry from Paris or even London. How was she ever to feel at home in such a place?
    Their coachman knocked at the door of the manor house, and Madeline held her breath then stared in shock and dismay at what she saw when the door was opened.

 Eight
    A horrible-looking, toothless hag stood at the door, reminding Madeline for all the world of the witches from Macbeth . Had Shakespeare ever seen this dreadful old woman?
    “Happen ye be of the MacCarnan?” the old woman smiled to reveal a grotesque blackness where front teeth should have been. She held out an arthritic hand, gnarled and twisted like an old tree branch.
    Madeline instinctively drew back, but Maman came forward and extended her own pale digits to the claw. She told the old woman who she was and they were welcomed into the house immediately.
    “I dinna ken your da, but I know of ye, and now you have come home. Ye will be welcome by Lady Anne.”
    They were shown into a drawing room of sorts, though it was hardly what Madeline had been accustomed to either in France or England. The room was plain, unadorned and depressingly dreary. She made no comment, noting only that Maman had a smile on her lips.
    A tall, red-headed woman entered the room, along with a pretty child of eleven or twelve. The woman was several inches taller than her mother with hair a much fiercer shade of red. She came toward them and immediately embraced Maman. Then she turned to the old hag.
    “Ye can go back to your duties now,” the lady said with a wave of dismissal.
    Anne MacCarnan was the widow of James MacCarnan, her mother’s first cousin. As Madeline understood it, Anne was herself a second cousin. The two women greeted each other with affection. The cousins seemed immediately at ease, probably due to a long ago friendship that had been sustained by correspondence over the ensuing years.
    Madeline did not understand everything that was said; the two women often broke into a dialect of Gaelic, the true language of the Highlands. Her mother had schooled her to some extent in this language and Madeline was quick to pick up on different tongues. In the schoolroom, she had been tutored and become proficient in English and Italian as well as French. Her English had improved to the extent that she spoke almost without accent. But Gaelic was rarely used and so Madeline had to listen carefully to understand even a little of their rapid conversation.
    Madeline was introduced to Andrew MacCarnan’s younger sister as well. Her impression was of a tall, skinny girl all auburn hair, freckles and large, inquisitive eyes.
    Maman told Anne of their brief visit with Andrew and she nodded her approval.