‘They wouldn’t survive the winter without doing this. Poor things have been sleeping here undisturbed for God knows how many winters now.’ Atholl reached for a handful of bramble cuttings and placed them over the creatures’ safe spot, concealing them again.
‘Amazing!’ Beatrice said, struggling to stand and saying ‘oof’ when Atholl helped her to her feet.
‘Ithink it’s amazing. I suppose what I’m saying, Beattie, is it’s all right for you to hibernate and keep yourself safe here at the inn. You dinnae need to fash yourself with anything outside. Those wee beasties there, they’re no’ worrying about the future, they’re letting nature take control. They’re resting and waiting for spring. You do that too. Nature will do her thing whether you worry yourself sick or whether you go baby shopping mad and make up some lavish nursery room piled to the ceilings wi’ wee yellow blankets.
‘Cells, they will divide; wee sleepy creatures will hide away in the dark, gathering their strength; the blackberry will root itself in every nook and cranny and run wild all across what was once a bonny wee garden, and no conscious thought will go into those processes at all. And we’ll all keep turning round the sun until the longer days come in and its time again for everything to wake up and come to life. You, Beattie, do not have to do anything either. Nature will do it all. I have nothing but faith in her.’
Beatrice leaned into the cosy nook of Atholl’s chest and let her eyes roam over the scrubby garden. A robin was flitting amongst the undergrowth looking for grubs turned up in the soil disturbed by the Fergusson brothers’ digging. Below the grey stone window ledge of the sun room were tufts of green, the first signs of snowdrops preparing to flower, slender heralds of spring.
Beatrice gripped Atholl all the tighter. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and the pair stood still in the fading light and listened to the robin’s winter song.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The Chief’s Chamber
Late January brings a second kind of winter in the Highlands. The first was gentle, hearth-fire scented and candlelit, a quiet time for family and a lean time for making do all through midwinter. Once Hogmanay becomes a memory, winter takes on a harder aspect and Scots must face the slow trudge towards spring, knowing it will be a long time coming and that the days will remain short, dark and bitterly cold.
This is the time of digging deep, of taking scraps of comfort anywhere they can be found. Grannies crack open summer fruit preserves and the harvest chutneys, the log piles are quickly burned through, and there is a deep sense of being rationed, of surviving until the lighter days come in – the feeling of hardy, impatient waiting.
This is why by the third week of the first month something peculiar to the Scots begins to emerge: the aggravated awareness of having been cossetted indoors, stuck with one’s own thoughts and the loneliness of Christmas being long gone, and the keen need for friends, and a thirst that can only be slaked by one long, wild night of poetry and song, hearty food and birling dances, and, of course, a great deal of whisky.
That is why tonight everyone fortunate enough to have a ticket is dressing up to the nines and venturing out across the countryside through sleet and cranreuch towards Castle Carron. The castle rises out of the heath above Port Willow and tonight its every window is aglow against the starry darkness, promising a warm reprieve from the relentless winter.
On the ruins of Castle Carron’s medieval battlements and lit by a flaming torch, a piper in full Highland regalia braves the weather to draw in the laird’s guests. His music is carried on the wind over hill and glen.
This is an evening for sentiment and solidarity, when folk far from home wear their clan colours and wish themselves back in Scotland. This is a night for incanting words written three hundred years ago, a time for telling stories of witches and ghosts, drunkards and traitors. This is a night for sweethearts and for the spurned, the beloved and the wronged. There is a verse for everyone. This is Robert Burns Night.
Mutt’s motorbike engine purred to a stop on the crunching gravel. Nina had clung to his black leather jacket all the way from the inn, glad she’d chosen to wear her black tux, bought off the peg and in a panic when she’d first arrived in New York and realising she’d need something smart to wear to evening events, and fast, but she couldn’t afford any of the luxurious designer suits she’d seen at Tom Ford or Alexander McQueen. So she’d picked up this outfit for a hundred dollars and paired it with the best heels she had, simply mixing up her shirts every time she wore it. She’d been amazed nobody seemed to know it was a high street outfit and it became one of her favourite things to wear until it was relegated to the neglected end of her wardrobe, pushed out by the pretty things Luke gave her.
‘Regretting the kilt?’ she asked Mutt, stepping, stiff-legged, off the bike and pulling her black helmet off, smoothing her hair back.
‘It’s certainly breezier than leathers,’ Mutt told her from behind the dark visor. She could tell he was laughing.
He’d opted for a heavy black utility kilt with the traditional socks, also in black, and his trusty work boots, gleaming with polish, laced messily and loose around the shin. Nina had been a little lost for words when he’d pulled up at the inn on a black Royal Enfield Bullet and even more surprised at the sight of him in the high-necked black jumper and beaten-up leather jacket.
Mutt let her re-live the feeling again now as he pulled his helmet off and raked back his dark hair, those lashes still spiked like on the first day she’d met him when she’d thought they must be his only redeeming feature.
Instead of gawping, she turned to look up at the castle wall towering above her. ‘We’re early. You’re sure they won’t mind?’
‘Doubt it, it’s a hotel after all. I’ll show you around and we can grab a drink before the entertainment kicks off.’
‘And then they feed us all haggis?’
‘Aye. I took the liberty of requesting the vegetarian haggis for you though.’
‘How do you know I hardly ever eat meat?’
‘I just knew.’ He shrugged. Nina squinted at him, unconvinced. ‘Oh, all right, I asked Beatrice. She said you almost always choose the veggie options.’
‘Impressive sneaking.’
‘Consideration, you mean?’ Mutt smiled wickedly, locking their helmets away in the bike’s top box.
‘Shall we?’ Nina said, and together they crossed the castle esplanade, which was already getting busy with cars. They walked over the drawbridge that hadn’t been raised in decades and entered into the castle.
Castle Carron has lived through many incarnations: first, a thousand-year-old wood-and-thatch castle keep, every trace of it long since gone; then a fortified stone medieval clansman’s home; now, after a great many Victorian gothic touches and sharp twenty-first-century architectural additions, it stands as a sprawling, smart hotel, part ruin, part modern tourist attraction.
Mutt led Nina straight into the contemporary part of the castle, all red carpets, dark drapes, shining wood staircases and everything grand and imposing. He’d waved to the woman at the reception desk who knew his name and she’d greeted him with a cheery hello.
